


I've got you deep in the heart of me

by coalitiongirl



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 2b, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, S3, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-21 12:10:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9548483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl
Summary: Soulmates are for the privileged few, the good, the fairytale heroes. Soulmates are for love stories, and Regina’s love has only ended in pain and loss. A soulmate would be a waste of her ability, and she persuades herself of it so vehemently that she can stand naked in her castle, surrounded by mirrors, and pretend that she isn’t searching for a tattoo on her skin anymore.She casts a curse, rides to a castle to find a savior, and wakes up in a strange house that is to be home from now on. She’s won, and it’s never felt so fitting.When she dresses for her first day as mayor, she sees it: an intricate mark against the tan skin just beneath her breast, shaped like a sunburst with a web woven through it. It’s a new world, it’s a new destiny, and she touches her mark and is as afraid as she is wondering.Written for Swan Queen Week Day 4: Soulmate AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queenssaviour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenssaviour/gifts).



> For Emmi, who prompted this (albeit in a far more AU setting, lmao)! I wasn't able to finish this one in advance, so you can expect updates every 1-2 weeks until it's done. 
> 
> This takes place just after most of Welcome to Storybrooke, that S2 episode just after Cora's death when Regina almost uses a love spell and Henry tries to blow up magic (with a stick of dynamite, bless his heart). It'll go all the way into 3b though! I reserve the right to completely ignore plot when it gets in the way of writing nothing but unnecessary touches and endless pining, pls be advised.

She’d never gotten the mark.

 

Plenty of people are born without them; the mark only comes in when their soulmate is born. Once she’d been old enough to understand, Regina had twisted herself around every day, inspecting her body for any sign of a bruise that might darken into a tattoo. But her bruises had remained bruises, magicked away by Mother’s dismissive hand, and she’d wondered if Mother had cast some sort of spell to make sure that Regina would be alone forever.

 

It had made sense at the time, and Regina had retreated into herself for a long time. She’d fallen in love anyway, and lost him just as quickly. She’d been married to a king and been more relieved than disconsolate that she’d never had a mark on her. Power would be her soulmate; control, magic, vengeance would be her soulmates. She has no need for a silly mark and a different destiny than the one she’d surrendered to.

 

She meets a fairy who promises to take her to her soulmate, who insists that she has one. She sees him in a tavern– sees the lion of a man-made tattoo on his wrist, sees the possibility that maybe it’s because he _doesn’t_ – maybe he could be–

 

She flees the tavern in scorn of herself, for believing in an ending she’s already forgone.

 

Soulmates are for the privileged few, the good, the fairytale heroes. Soulmates are for _love stories_ , and Regina’s love has only ended in pain and loss. A soulmate would be a waste of her ability, and she persuades herself of it so vehemently that she can stand naked in her castle, surrounded by mirrors, and pretend that she isn’t searching for a tattoo on her skin anymore.

 

She casts a curse, rides to a castle to find a savior, and wakes up in a strange house that is to be _home_ from now on. She’s won, and it’s never felt so fitting.

  
When she dresses for her first day as mayor, she sees it: an intricate mark against the tan skin just beneath her breast, shaped like a sunburst with a web woven through it. It’s a new world, it’s a new destiny, and she touches her mark and is as afraid as she is wondering.

 

* * *

 

There had been no soulmate in her new world. There had only been the curse and endless monotony, and then, finally, Henry.  _ Henry,  _ who had made it all worth it, who had given her a chance after Emma Swan had broken her curse, who had been lost to her forever when Mother had returned.

 

And now Mother is gone, and Regina is alone in a too-silent house after her son had nearly tried to blow himself up with dynamite, rather than to love her again.

 

The events of the day have run through her mind over and over again: Henry’s fear, the brief smile as he’d turned back to Emma. Emma’s  _ get away from my son  _ had burned more than it should have for the number of times that she’d said the exact same thing to Emma.  _ My son _ , as though Regina’s decade of loving Henry had been erased in an instant.

 

Maybe it had. Who is there to bear witness to her motherhood, now that Henry has rejected her and been welcomed into her enemies’ family with open arms? Who else would see him as  _ hers _ anymore? And at the same time, her breath catches in her throat in a sob when she remembers the rest of it, the hope that had come with Henry’s  _ thank you _ and the desolation that had come with Emma’s  _ magic isn’t the problem, kid, it’s her. _

 

_ Magic makes good people do terrible things _ , Henry had said, and Emma had interjected  _ and bad people _ , and Regina had felt something twist and break within her that she can’t name. She remembers Emma standing outside Granny’s before Mother had interfered, smiling at her as though she’d been happy to see her, as though she’d been happy to believe that she’d been  _ trying– _

 

She’s been standing in place for what feels like hours, staring at herself in the mirror. She’s taken off her blazer, is standing with only her bra on, and the mark of her soulmate is stark beneath it. It’s almost a lifeline now, as it never has been before.  _ Someone will love you _ , is its assurance.  _ Someone out there will want you _ .

 

It’s nonsense, pathetic, won’t bring the only one she loves back to her, and she only remembers that when the doorbell rings and she’s jerked into the present again. Who would  _ dare _ come here now, when she’s mourning and dangerous? Some of the town miscreants had taken to ringing her doorbell and running off, leaving garbage or– in one disgusting case– feces behind on her porch as they’d snickered from the bushes. But they’d stopped when Mother had returned, fearful of her as they are no longer of Regina. Maybe they’re back at it.

 

But in the back of her mind, there’s always the wild hope–  _ Henry, Henry’s come home, Henry needs her _ – and she’s buttoning her blazer as she hurries down the stairs, her heart aching and raw and ready to be battered again as she pulls the door open.

 

Emma Swan stands on her porch, hands in her pockets and fidgeting. Regina looks down instead, and then around her, peering into the windows of her awful yellow Bug to see if–

 

“Henry’s not with me,” Emma says, and Regina’s eyes snap to hers. She looks…uncomfortable, to be sure, and more anxious than Regina’s seen her since that night at Granny’s. She’d never looked anxious when they’d been at each other’s throats or Emma had been accusing her of murder. “I thought we should talk.” 

 

The hope rises again, unbidden. Everything Emma says leads back to  _ him _ , to each possible way that this can be about seeing Henry. “Is he– does he want to–” Regina starts, and then falls silent, exasperated with her own vulnerability. 

 

“Not about Henry,” Emma amends, and she bites her lip, making eye contact with Regina for the first time today. She hadn’t looked away from Henry once when they’d been at the well together. “I mean...everything’s about Henry in the end, but…” She glances into the house, then back to Regina; and this time, Regina sees a helpless sort of uncertainty in Emma’s eyes.

 

She clears her throat, disappointed but somehow not, and it takes another moment of tense silence before she says, “Why don’t you come in?” 

 

A look of relief spreads across Emma’s face, quickly replaced again by the fidgety determination. “Yeah. Uh...okay.” She follows Regina inside, and shakes her head when Regina silently offers her a drink. “I don’t plan on crashing into the town sign again anytime soon.” She laughs nervously, and Regina feels a little more confident here, in her home, where she holds the power.

 

She leads her into the study, sits gingerly on one of the sofas while Emma perches on the other, and she thinks she might survive this conversation if she can keep her face smooth and unaffected by Emma Swan.

 

And then Emma says, “I just...I wanted to apologize,” and Regina’s eyes go wide, unbidden, and she raises her chin without any composure and stares at Emma’s earnest face.

 

“You  _ what _ ?” 

 

“For not believing you when...about Archie.” Emma licks her lips nervously and Regina can only gape at her. “I thought you were innocent. I really did. And then we saw Pongo’s memories and–” 

 

“And you saw me doing it, yes,” Regina says impatiently, already fed up with rehashing this. “It’s not your fault. My mother gave you an airtight case.” She’d said as much to Mother when Mother had first brought it up, had still been ridiculously emotional about the almost-something that she’d built with Emma to see it destroyed. She’s destroyed too many lives to believe that she deserves the benefit of the doubt. 

 

Emma blinks. “I...I didn’t think you’d…” 

 

“Be reasonable?” Regina cuts in. “Did you think I was looking for every opportunity to switch sides?” Emma’s eyes flicker downward in embarrassed acknowledgement. “I  _ defended  _ you,” Regina says, and now she’s bitter again. “I was going to bring Mother to you, to be everything you all wanted me to be. And then you left Storybrooke with  _ my son _ and–”

 

And had returned an enemy again. The words catch in her throat, thicker than they’re supposed to be, and Emma is staring at her, stricken.

 

“I wanted to go straight to you when we found Archie,” she says, but there’s an air of defeat about her. “But then there was– this stranger drove into town, and then Gold wanted to collect on a debt and wouldn’t give me time to– Regina, I’m  _ sorry _ .” The apology spills from her so easily that even she looks startled at it. “I’m so, so sorry.” 

 

Regina feels hollowed out, a shell with only those words echoing through her and penetrating nothing. “It’s not like I gave you many reasons to believe in me,” she says grudgingly, and she trembles and doesn’t know why.

 

“I would have probably done much worse in my years before Storybrooke if I’d thought that it’d make a mother love me,” Emma murmurs, and it’s an acknowledgement and an understanding at once. Regina thinks of Emma with a knife at her throat, trying to barter with Mother for Regina’s life and failing, and there’s a lump in her throat again.

 

She swallows past it, but the words still emerge wet and raw. “No, you wouldn’t.” Emma Swan is a  _ hero _ , as loathsome as it is to admit it. “You’re  _ good _ .” She tries to bite it out with disdain, but she falters midway through and has to swallow back a sob. 

 

Emma looks down again, her fingers curling and uncurling on her knee as though she’s beginning to regret declining a drink. “I shouldn’t have...I didn’t mean what I said earlier. I was just so afraid for...for our son.” She stumbles over the words a bit, but the peace offering is clear within it, as is the gauntlet for her to accept.  _ Our son _ . A new approach, a boy that joins them instead of keeping them apart.

 

“So was I,” Regina whispers, and she’s never yearned more for human connection, to reach out and touch Emma and be sure that all of this is real and not a cruel dream. Her heart aches, the tattoo etched just beneath it pulsing still from the hours with her hand pressed to it. 

 

Emma stares at her, wide-eyed and open as she’d been when she’d first returned from the Enchanted Forest with her mother, and Regina is only imagining the longing she can’t put to words reflected in Emma’s stare. “This is…we should talk more about all of this this,” Emma says tentatively. 

 

_ I’m about to start dinner _ , Regina almost says. She winces, holding  _ that  _ back. She doesn’t know what had possessed her to even  _ think _ it, to invite Emma to spend more time in her house, to offer her a meal when her fridge has been empty for weeks. Emma doesn’t need to know about that. Emma doesn’t need to know… 

 

Her tattoo pulses again and she almost puts a hand to it. “I don’t seem to be all that busy lately,” she says instead, plastering a politician’s smile onto her face. Emma tilts her head, watching her silently. “If you...wanted to come by again. It would be good for Henry if we were...getting along,” she rushes forward, and Emma bobs her head.

 

“Of course,” she says, just as quick, and she rises slowly, rubbing at her side and turning for the door. Regina pulls it open for her, and they both reach for the front door at the same moment.

 

Their hands brush and Regina has to stifle a gasp at the electricity that sparks between them– the same electricity that had always been there last year, but she’d attributed it to hatred back then. Now, it jolts something inside her that’s been empty for a long time, and Emma’s hand is trembling slightly as she drops it. “Have a good night,” Emma says, her voice hoarse, and Regina can only nod and close the door behind her, slumping to the ground as fire surges through her body.

  
She’d thought that fire had been extinguished long ago, and she rests her head against the door and lets out a strangled sob. 

 

* * *

 

 

Emma comes back, which is as startling as it had been that she’d come in the first place. She lurks outside the front door for a few minutes, paces with her thumbs hooked into her jeans as Regina watches her from her study window, and then she turns and makes a beeline for the front door that has Regina exhaling a breath she hadn’t noticed she’d been holding. 

“Hi,” Emma says when Regina opens the door. “I…” She doesn’t seem to know how to cross the threshold, how to ask to be invited in. She stands alone on the porch without an ounce of the confidence that she’d flaunted so often before the curse had been broken, and Regina might have made her squirm, in another lifetime.

In this one, she’s far too alone to risk pushing someone like Emma away.

Henry doesn’t come with her, not that time or the times that follow. Regina is afraid to ask, to be turned down or for this fragile balance between them to be broken, and Emma doesn’t volunteer answers, though she talks about him more often than she does anyone else. “He’s been doing this diorama for school,” Emma says one evening, gulping down enough cider that it makes her extra tactless. “I  _ suck  _ at making dioramas. But Mary Margaret keeps offering to take over like I can’t  _ do  _ it, so I can’t let her–” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Henry’s so disappointed. I know he’s trying to be supportive, but I see his face and I  _ know  _ I don’t measure up to you–”

“Miss Swan, do you really think I want to hear this?” Regina says tersely, her glass trembling in her hands.

Emma blinks at her through glassy eyes. “I thought it’d make you feel better. Or superior,” she says, shrugging with marked self-deprecation.

She’s so  _ ridiculous _ . “Yes, well,” Regina sniffs, and tries very hard not to flush.

Emma Swan is dangerous, she knows that. Emma’s been dangerous to her since the first time she’d shown her kindness, and kindness is in short supply for Regina. People like Emma are even more so.

Sometime between Emma pulling her out of a burning building and Emma telling her that Henry had wanted her to be safe, Regina had discovered that she hadn’t wanted Emma dead. That had been more than enough to process, and it had only gotten worse from there. “My mother kept promising me your death,” she confesses one afternoon. She’s back at her office now, sorting through weeks of lagging paperwork, and Emma had arrived with lunch from Granny’s and never left, somehow. 

(“Half of my job now is just to keep an eye on you, anyway,” she’d said lightly, and Regina had stared at her, her throat stuck on the words with which she’d wanted to respond. Emma had tried to smile but it had faltered on her lips and she’d ducked her head instead.)

Now, Emma’s on the other side of her desk with her feet up, and Regina pokes them back down with a clipboard as Emma says, “That’s always a nice perk. I hope she threw in my parents, too.” She props her feet back onto the desk. “You take her up on it?” 

“Of course I did,” Regina says, suddenly irritable. Why does Emma think she’s  _ telling _ her this, if not to confess another of her sins? But Emma is watching her, head tilted and eyes unafraid, and Regina is ashamed instead. “I don’t know if I wanted it,” she mutters under Emma’s steady gaze. “I wanted…” 

She’d wanted  _ Henry _ , she’d wanted vengeance, and she hadn’t known what she’d wanted from Emma Swan at all until Emma had been on her porch with her hands deep in her pockets.

“I might take you up on that murdering my mom thing,” Emma says, sighing theatrically as though this is a casual conversation and not a very real and recent scenario. “I found her ogling Neal last night.” Regina’s eyebrows shoot up. “Not like  _ that _ ,” Emma amends. “She just keeps...trying to find his tat.” 

She winces, and Regina does, too. Soulmate tattoos are essentially taboo in both the worlds that she’d lived in, and discussion of them still comes with the discomfort of impoliteness. “Sorry,” Emma mumbles. “It’s just...so frustrating, god.” 

“She’s seen yours,” Regina guesses, and she can’t help the way her eyes sweep over Emma, searching unconsciously for a hint. “Looking for a perfect match?” 

“She thinks...she thinks that if she can somehow  _ prove  _ that I belong with Neal, then I’ll keep trying for the happy little family she’s dreamed up.” Emma rolls her eyes, and Regina feels the dread of  _ happy little family  _ deep in the pit of her stomach, weighing her down. “Because why should I have a choice in anything about my existence?” 

“Do you?” Regina asks, and it’s too pushy, too rude, too interested in something that’s none of her business. She grits her teeth, staring at the document in front of her as her eyes scan it mindlessly. 

Emma says, “Do I what? Match his tat? Want her happy little family? Have any choices?” Regina is unable to look up or respond, reading the words of a new proposed building ordinance over and over and over again. She hears the light sigh, sees Emma’s boots drop from the desk at the corner of her eye, and looks up only when Emma stands and moves around the desk to face her.

  
“Have a good afternoon, Regina,” Emma murmurs, and she reaches out, her fingers brushing against Regina’s shoulder for a moment before she retreats.

 

* * *

 

 

The trouble with seeing Emma Swan more and more often is that she becomes an addict– becomes needier than she’d ever meant to be, is too dependent on Emma’s visits to break up her daily monotony. Henry is a distant dream at this point, a reason to endure every day of this empty existence– but Emma is an anchor she’d never expected, and Regina runs on awkward smiles and the occasional fleeting touch. 

_ Dangerous _ . She goes two days without Emma and is irritable and anxious, the hours dragging on as she replays their last conversation in her mind. She snaps at anyone who attempts to talk to her, forgets her facade of calm and scowls at everyone she walks past in the street, and she makes a turn for home and finds herself instead at the sheriff’s station.

She pushes the door open, summoning the composure to toss out, “Sheriff Swan, if you aren’t too busy licking donut crumbs off your fingers, I have…” Her voice trails off. 

Emma isn’t in the office. Henry is, seated behind the desk with a shoebox diorama and a package of model clay.

He looks up at her, his eyes wary, and he says, “Emma had to go catch Pongo. What do you need her for?” 

“I…” Her excuses fade under Henry’s suspicious gaze, and she’s left only with an unsatisfying truth. “I wanted to say hello,” she says meekly. Henry raises his eyebrow in a mirror of her own around Emma, politely dubious. Regina cringes, a mighty queen brought to her knees with her son’s disdain. “Is– is that the diorama you’ve been working on for school?” 

“It sucks,” Henry says, his eyes still leery on her, but he turns the shoebox around. “Does it look like a boat now?” 

Regina squints, tilting her head. Henry has always been a talented student, creative and thoughtful and full of big ideas. He’s never been much of an artist. “It’s beautiful,” she lies unconvincingly.

Henry scowls at her. “Yeah, right.” But there’s an uncertainty in his eyes as they flicker from the diorama to Regina and then to the empty seat in front of the desk, the sort of uncertainty that Regina’s seen on Emma’s face each time she rings Regina’s doorbell. Holding her breath, desperate to seem casual, Regina takes the seat.

Henry exhales. “Do you think you could…?” he starts, pushing over the diorama. 

“Of course.” Regina takes the lumpy ship from its spot, smoothing down its clay sides as Henry watches expectantly. She can’t help but feel as though she’s being tested, as though her entire relationship with her son is dependent on what she can do now. But she can’t read him at all now, can’t understand why he, too, looks as though he’s hovering atop a house of cards.

She takes his hands and he doesn’t flinch away as she guides them to the ship. “Pinch the edges,” she instructs, moving his fingers to the point of the ship. “Now we can roll the mast. What are you planning on using for the sails?” 

Henry is obedient, darting glances up at her as she cocks her head and shapes the mast. “I’m surprised you aren’t building more birdhouses,” she says, and regrets it immediately. If Henry thinks she’s being snide…

But he doesn’t scowl, just says, “We’re doing a unit on explorers,” and goes back to cutting papers for the sails. “Emma’s really trying, but…” He peeks up at her again, biting his lip and then deciding against finishing the sentence. His loyalty to Emma first still cuts deep, but she smiles tremulously anyway and squeezes his hand. He doesn’t pull away. “Have you ever been on a ship like this?” 

“On occasion,” she admits, biting back her discomfort at discussion of her past. “I, uh…”  _ Was hunting your grandmother  _ isn’t going to go over well, she suspects, and she flounders until there’s a wry voice from the doorway.

“I spent a week shaping that awful ship,” Emma says, shaking her head, and Henry looks up at her, almost fearful. Regina’s heart cracks, just a little, but Emma’s still grinning and Henry relaxes again. “You did good, kid,” she says, squeezing his shoulder. “We needed some professional help.” Now she flashes a shy smile at Regina, and Regina is breathless at it, at Henry with his hand still in hers, at Emma’s eyes soft as she looks from Henry to Regina.

Henry tugs his hand away, flushing, and Emma ruffles his hair and nudges him. “Out of my seat, kid. You still waiting for your dinner date?” 

Reality comes crashing down again, in the form of Henry’s innocent, “Dad called right after you left. He said he’s on his way.” Regina jerks back, her features arranging and rearranging by rote until she has a horrible false smile on her face.  _ Dad _ . He calls a man he’s just met  _ Dad _ , and he can hardly look at her at all. 

She remembers  _ happy little family  _ again and wants to vomit, wants to set fire to the world, wants to seize Emma and shake her until all of these complications disappear– 

If  _ that man  _ walks into the station, she doesn’t think she’ll be able to control herself. She grips her knees below the desk, out of Henry’s line of sight, and she can feel magic itching at the tips of her fingers and demanding to be set free. To be–

Emma glances at her and says, “I think I hear him outside. Have a good time, kid,” and then Henry’s giving Emma a hug and moving toward Regina, slowly and uncertainly, as though he’s approaching a sleeping lion. She waits, forces herself to stay still, to keep her expression light and harmless.

He takes another step forward, and she can’t stop her hands from reaching to him, to grasp his hand in hers. He smiles, a brief blast of sunshine, and says, “Bye, Mom,” and races out the door.

She breathes, her heart pounding, and Emma murmurs, “He misses you. He’s afraid to admit it, but he misses you.” She sounds almost wistful, and Regina looks at her askance, remembers Henry calling her  _ Mom  _ and Neal  _ Dad _ and Emma  _ Emma _ . “I’m sorry. I should have pushed him to see you earlier.” She doesn’t offer her excuses, and Regina understands all too well. It’s easier, sometimes, to be selfless with the things they aren’t still afraid of losing, and it stings but she...she  _ knows _ , too.

She can’t say  _ it’s all right  _ when it isn’t, but she can sit in comfortable silence and wait for Emma to say, “So, what brings you here?” as the mood shifts. “I’ve actually been keeping up with my paperwork lately.”

Regina shrugs, unwilling to explain. Getting along with Emma is one thing.  _ Missing  _ Emma is quite another.

Emma peers up at her, searches her face and finds something on it that makes her lick her lips anxiously. “I thought...after last time, I thought I’d made you uncomfortable with the…”

“Soulmate talk?” Regina supplies, squeezing model clay between her fingers. “No,” she says, and then again, “No,” more firmly. “I’ve never given a damn about any of that superstitious nonsense.” 

Emma’s brow furrows. “But something did upset you. I thought you’d want some time away from me.” 

It’s  _ absurd _ , that Emma could see her reaction to Emma’s last words to her and interpret it as something else entirely. It’s absurd that Regina would have that reaction at all, that she would have the same reaction now to the idea of  _ wanting some time away _ , and she swallows and lies, “I thought you were upset.” 

“I  _ was _ ,” Emma concedes. “But not with you.” She rubs her side, leaning back in her chair. “My mom is still running with the whole  _ Neal’s soulmate  _ thing and Henry overheard, and now it’s just…” She swallows. “Messy.” 

Regina is sitting stiffly again, can feel the discomfort flooding her and fails to fight down a scowl. “I’m sure Henry is thrilled.” 

Emma groans, dropping her head into her hands. “I want to beat Gold to death with his own cane for dragging me to Manhattan to find Neal.” 

“Not an uncommon desire.” 

Emma stares at her, rueful. “Yeah.” She reaches across the desk to where Regina’s still toying with the clay, and rests her hand over Regina’s briefly. A jolt runs through Regina, and she stares at Emma’s hand as Emma yanks it back. “Uh.” 

“Uh,” Regina echoes.

“What about you?” Emma says abruptly, her cheeks darker than they’d been a moment before. “What did you…How did you explain to him…I mean, you don’t…” She’s stumbling over the words, looking as though she regrets them already.

Regina takes pity on her. “I don’t have a soulmate,” she murmurs. “I don’t...I don’t imagine I ever will. Henry asked once or twice when he was younger, after his mark came in, and he was young enough to accept it when I told him I didn’t need a soulmate. I had him.” She can’t wipe the smile off her face, the distant memory of a tiny boy peppering her with kisses and promising that they’d be together forever. It had been something to hold onto for a long time, until it hadn’t been anymore.

“Oh,” Emma breathes, and her hand moves toward Regina’s again, stops centimeters away, and Regina feels it as keenly as a loss. Emma clears her throat. “I…I don’t have one, either,” she says, and she looks down, visibly embarrassed. 

The wash of relief that suffuses Regina is unwanted and ridiculous. She takes a long breath, struggles to keep it off her face. “So not Neal, then.” Emma shakes her head. “I imagine you’ll get a grand love story someday.” It burns, even admitting it, even just knowing that Emma  _ will _ and Regina will never… 

The hot bolt of jealousy is about Emma’s life resolving itself perfectly, about the savior and her charmed life and certainly not about anything else. “Something worthy of the savior,” Regina finishes hollowly, and Emma breathes like a sob and stands up, turning away from her. 

“Please don’t call me that.” Her shoulders shake once, twice, and Regina is immediately regretful, and  _ how  _ is it that she can be brought so low by only Emma’s despair?

Regina swallows. “Emma–” she says, rising, and Emma turns around to face her, her face smooth and unreadable again. 

“I’m sorry,” Emma whispers. “I’m sorry, I can’t–” Regina takes a step forward just as Emma does, and they’re suddenly too close. Regina’s breath is ragged in her ears, and she  _ wants _ , she wants and wants and can never have–

She lifts a hand anyway, presses it to Emma’s cheek and feels Emma trembling beneath it. Emma’s eyes flutter closed and Regina stands, frozen with indecision.

And then logic returns, dull and damning in its simplicity. “You’re the hero of this story,” she breathes, and Emma’s eyes open again.  _ Were they always this green?  _ she wonders inanely. “You’re destined for...everything you’ve ever wanted.” 

Emma gazes at her, still leaning into her palm. “I don’t want it,” she says in a low voice. “I don’t want any of it.” 

“You’re lying.” And she must be, because this is Emma Swan who’d met Henry and never left town, who dresses obediently like her mother now, who endures so much for the sake of belonging. She’s known Emma as an enemy and she knows her now as something like an ally, and she knows how much she must crave the security of a  _ soulmate _ . Regina had once been young and bold and fiercely loving, and she’d wanted one as desperately as she’d wanted freedom and hope. “Emma…” 

Emma looks away from her, looks down, Regina’s hand now in her hair. Regina lets it stroke downward to run along her jaw and neck, is breathless with something that can’t happen with a yearning she can’t deny anymore, and then…

The phone rings. Emma springs away from Regina, her eyes wide, and snatches the phone from its receiver. “Sheriff Swan,” she barks into it, and perhaps the caller can’t hear the crack in her voice like Regina can.

  
Regina backs away, her heart pounding, and flees from the room before she can betray herself any more.

 

* * *

 

 

She doesn’t expect to see Emma again. That exchange had been…a mistake at best, and Emma must think so, too. Emma doesn’t return to her house. If she succumbs to paranoia, she even notices that Emma doesn’t seem to be heading to work at the same time as she does in the morning anymore.

But she won’t succumb to paranoia. Whatever had gone on, it only has to matter if she decides it matters. That had been her mantra after Mother had framed her. Emma had smiled at her after she’d climbed out of the well, wrapped around Henry, and said,  _ your mom, she’s a piece of work, you know?  _ And something in that smile had left Regina’s heart fluttering and clenching even more when Henry and Emma had walked off together to a celebratory dinner.

Emma had invited her to dinner at Granny’s the next night and Regina had shaken her head and made excuses and Emma had looked up at her as though she’d  _ missed  _ her, and Regina hadn’t been able to make excuses anymore. Emma had been...someone to trust, for a brief time. She’d been attracted to her before the curse had broken, but she’d never then been foolish enough to let it devolve into  _ feelings _ . 

She won’t be so foolish now. 

Emma sends her a text two days later, and Regina hates how her heart leaps in her chest when she sees it. She opens it and it’s a brief,  _ Hey, would you mind getting Henry from school today?  _ and her heart leaps again, but it’s safer now. Unrequited… feelings… are more acceptable when they’re for Henry.

She gets to the school ten minutes early and endures the glares and stares of other parents as they park outside the building. But it’s all worth it when Henry steps out of the building and sees her, his eyes lighting up for a moment before his brow furrows with confusion.

_ At least it isn’t suspicion _ . She wonders if she should take out her phone, show him the evidence that she’d been asked to be here, but she still has enough pride not to  _ start  _ with that. Instead, she lets a genuine smile spread across her face, one Henry matches shyly, and she takes a step forward just as the familiar noise of the Bug squeals to a halt behind her. 

_ No _ . No, this was supposed to be her time with Henry. Emma can’t come in and take it from her, not so soon–

But it isn’t Emma, and Regina watches with a sinking heart as Henry looks from Regina to the driver behind her with rising bewilderment. It gets only worse when  _ he  _ speaks. “Emma’s been chasing some teenagers out in the woods, and I figured she might forget about picking you up.” 

She knows immediately who he is, and her fingers drive nails into her sides as she turns. The man–  _ Neal _ , whom she’s only seen from afar until now, blinks at her as his eyes go wide. “Oh, man. The Evil Queen.” 

“Emma didn’t  _ forget _ ,” she snarls, and it’s too harsh. She’s going to scare Henry off again. She forces her lips to curl upward, though she does nothing about the daggers in her eyes. “She asked me to pick Henry up from school.” 

Neal shrugs, grinning at her. It falters after a full eight seconds of silence. She’s losing her touch. “Thanks for picking up the slack. I can take it from here.” 

Other parents are staring. Henry has reached them, and is staring from Regina to Neal with rising concern. Regina wants to reach for him, to hold him tight and away from this man who has  _ no right  _ to Henry, another parent for him to run to– 

Instead, she grits out, “Yes, I’ve been  _ picking up the slack  _ for eleven years,” and turns on her heel, her head high as she walks down the sidewalk away from her son and the man who would be his father. Henry says something she can’t make out and she  _ knows _ , she knows she’ll be his villain again, and she wants to run but she can’t. 

She walks steadily, eyes dark at anyone who gapes, and she reaches her car and discovers that it had been keyed while she’d been waiting for Henry. 

It’s the last straw in this long, disappointing afternoon, and she’s ready to hide in her car and drive away and sob when the patrol car screeches to a halt behind her and Emma storms out. “Wait,” she says, grabbing Regina’s arm. “Don’t leave. I was–” She shakes her head, her face stormy, and Regina stares at her in confusion and muted hope and follows.

Neal hasn’t made it into the car again yet, and Henry is leaning against it, conflict darkening his expression. It lights up with relief when he sees Emma. “Moms,” he says, and this time they’re both  _ mom _ . It doesn’t feel like the poison Regina had once thought it would. “What’s going on?” 

“I got your text,” Emma says to Neal, eyes flashing. “You can’t just…make a decision and pick him up. I had it  _ covered _ .” 

“Right,” Neal says dubiously, but he holds up a disarming hand. Regina despises him. “I was just trying to help. I didn’t think we were…y’know.” He waves a hand at Regina. “Leaving Henry unsupervised with the Evil Queen.” 

There’s a maelstrom of magic within her, struggling fiercely to break free and strangle the man opposite her. She can feel it sparking at her fingers, can feel the air around her heavy and  _ waiting  _ for fire, can feel her fury building up with her helplessness into a raging storm.  _ Henry _ , she reminds herself, and looks down to see him with his eyes pleading on her as though he knows what she’s fighting. She shakes her head, her throat closing up as she suppresses murderous urges, and can barely see through a haze when it gets  _ worse _ .

Because yes, worse it gets, and with the sound of a voice behind them. “We aren’t,” Snow says, casting a wary eye on Regina. “At least, I hadn’t thought we were. Emma, what’s going on?” 

Emma wavers, casting a trapped glance back at Regina, and perhaps if Regina were a bit more selfless, she might’ve excused herself then and spared them all. Perhaps. But there’s suddenly a  _ chance  _ again, a moment to see Henry, and she isn’t humanly capable of giving that up. “Look,” Emma attempts. “Regina’s  _ trying _ , and I think that…I think she should get some time with her son, okay?” 

Snow shakes her head, already so patronizing that Regina loathes her all over again. She’d come to Regina’s door once after Emma’s first visit, had stood there as though she might beg for forgiveness, and Regina had slammed the door on her face. There had been little satisfaction then in killing Snow during her grief for her mother. Now, she’s beginning to yearn for it again. “Emma, you can’t change everyone. We’ve given her chance after chance and…” Ah, there’s the guilt, shadowing her face. “I know it’s been a hard time for us all–” 

“A  _ hard time _ ,” Regina echoes bitterly, unable to stay silent. “You  _ killed my mother _ .” Henry flinches and Regina tries to stop herself again but can’t. “And you’re going to claim the moral high ground here?” 

“Regina–” Emma says helplessly, reaching out with one hand, and Regina jerks away from her. The magic isn’t concealed within her anymore, it’s lighting up her fingers, and Neal takes a step back as Emma plunges onward. “Mary Margaret, please. Just...stop.” 

“You’re the savior, Emma,” Snow says kindly. Regina wants to throttle her. “You weren’t meant to be…to be all tangled up with  _ her _ .” Her eyes narrow, the calm fading from them. “Is that where you’ve been going at night? To Regina’s?” Her face falls. “I thought you were seeing Neal.” 

Neal raises his eyebrows. Emma throws up her hands. “Okay. You know what? I’m out. I’m just– let’s go, Henry.” She reaches for him and Snow says something quietly, just audible to Emma. 

Emma jerks back, her voice rising. “ _ He’s not my fucking soulmate!”  _ she snarls, loud enough that several parents turn to stare at her. 

Snow flinches back. “I’m trying to help you!” she says helplessly. “I’m trying to–” 

Regina can’t resist. “And yet, she’d rather spend time with the Evil Queen,” she sneers, stepping between them. Emma says her name in a low tone. Snow opens her mouth, her eyes fiery.

Henry says in a reedy voice, “Stop it! All of you!” They stop. Regina twists to see him, sees eyes wide with agitation and fear, and is ashamed. “Just stop,” he whispers, refusing to meet her gaze. “I’m just...I want to go with Dad.” 

Emma is the one to speak, her voice cracking. “Henry–”

But Henry turns away from them, his arms tight around himself, and he opens the door of the Bug and slides inside, waiting for Neal. Regina burns with helpless fury at the man, at Snow, at herself for exacerbating it. Emma stands in place, her jaw clenched and her chin quivering, and Snow says, “Emma, let’s go home.” 

Emma ignores her and stalks off, back in the direction of her car. Snow closes her eyes. Regina says, “Maybe it’s time you took a good, hard look at yourself and thought about why it is that Emma would prefer the Evil Queen’s company to your own.” It’s meant to be obnoxious, taunting, but instead it just feels tired, and Snow doesn’t react.

  
She returns to her own car, weary beyond having a good cry now, and opens the driver’s door to find Emma in the passenger seat.  _ Ah _ . She doesn’t say a word to the other woman. She starts the car and begins the drive away, her silent passenger breathing in short, uneven breaths all the way home.

 

* * *

 

 

Emma doesn’t speak until they’re inside and Regina is reheating a lasagna with half a piece gone from it. Regina had offered her cider that she’d gratefully taken, downing it at a worrying pace, but her eyes are still clear as she takes a seat. “She thinks she’s doing me a favor,” she says, and her voice is dull where her eyes aren’t. “She thinks I just need a little push and she knows what’s best for me.” 

“She’s a self-righteous fool,” Regina says darkly. “I would have plucked out her heart decades ago if I’d had the chance.” She can still feel the anger seething beneath the surface, the humiliation and loss and betrayal as strong as ever. She wants to lash out, to make her  _ pay _ , and she’s startled to realize that it isn’t just on her behalf.

Emma must see it in her eyes, because she reaches for Regina’s hand, puts hers over it. “Please don’t hurt her,” she whispers.

Regina shakes her head, unmoved. “Emma, this war’s been going for longer than you’ve been alive.” Emma presses her lips together, her eyes so sad and tired that Regina has to resist the absurd urge to flip her hand around to tangle Emma’s fingers in hers. “And she could use a little reality check,” she reminds her gently, taken by Emma’s exhaustion. 

“No,” Emma says, her tone defeated. “It’s not her fault. It’s mine.” 

“Emma–” 

“I’m supposed to be…the savior, I guess. Some kind of princess and leader and…I can’t even find my soulmate like a proper love story,” she says, resting her chin on one curled hand. “I’m a failure at this destiny bullcrap.” 

She stands up, pacing through the kitchen at a pace more frenetic than focused. “I wanted to…I can’t ride on breaking the curse forever. And I haven’t  _ done  _ anything since. I was useless in the Enchanted Forest. I completely fucked you over, and I couldn’t–”

Regina catches her mid-pace and rises, putting her hands on Emma’s arms to still her. “You did what you could.” And she means it. “You gave me a  _ chance.  _ And you…you’re here now, aren’t you?” 

Emma stares at her, her arms warm beneath Regina’s palms. “Regina,” she whispers, and she’s suddenly…so close, closer than she ever should be. Regina shivers, staring at the lines of Emma’s face and eyes that are so bright they might scorch her. “You’re wrong,” she says, and her hands are on Regina’s hair, are tender and unlike anyone’s have been on Regina for a lifetime. “I don’t…I don’t want your fairytale savior.” 

“Neither do I,” Regina admits, and bites back  _ I want  _ because she doesn’t have. She’s never going to have. “But it’s who you are.” 

“Bullshit,” Emma says fiercely. “Screw destiny.” She rubs her side in that unconscious tell she has, and Regina waits on a pinpoint, breathless as Emma’s hand runs through her hair over and over again. “God, I want to be  _ free _ ,” she sighs, an echo from Regina’s past that catches in the air around them. “I want…”       

She strokes Regina’s hair again, but her hand stills with a sudden determination. “Use your magic,” she says in a breath. “Please. I can’t fix anything else about me, but I can get rid of that damned tattoo.” 

Regina stares at her, her mind whirring frantically. “You’ve had too much of my cider.” 

“Do I look drunk?” Emma demands, dropping her hand. Regina aches for it at once. “Regina, please.” Her voice is low and pleading, still determined but so lost. “All I’m asking is to be free.” 

Regina shakes and yearns, yearns for  _ her _ , cares more about Emma Swan than she’d ever meant to, and she’s nodding before she can doubt it again. “You can’t regret this,” she says hoarsely. “You can’t hate me for this.” This fragile something that they’ve built together is too precious already, too much to lose because of a snap decision. This fragile something is too important to let Emma suffer its effects in years to come, when she finally does get that love story she’s destined for.

Emma’s eyes shine, shine, shine. “I’ve spent over a year trying to hate you for far worse,” she murmurs. “And I’ve never managed it, so–”

She lies on the couch, her left side exposed as Regina kneels beside her. She says, “Will it hurt?”

“I don’t know,” Regina admits. “I’ve...I’ve never done anything like this before.” Emma’s fingers are hooked into her jeans, tugging them down slowly. “I don’t think it’ll–” 

She stops.

Emma’s tattoo is on her left hip, dark against fair, unblemished skin. Regina is touching it without a thought– with a thousand thoughts, with every thought she’s ever had trapped within her until she feels as though they might roil into a tornado and destroy her– with only one thought, over and over again. Her fingers trace the webbed sunburst, trembling with legions of unspoken explanations, and she lets out a sob just as Emma’s hips jerk up against her palm.

“Oh, god,” Emma says. She sounds rattled, breathless and choked with every moment Regina touches her mark. “I’m sorry. That’s never happened before.” She’s shuddering, her legs clamped together, and a moan escapes her lips midway through her next attempt to speak. “Regina,” she manages, and her whole body quivers.

Regina chokes out, “Are you sure?”  _ Take it back, tell me no, don’t– _ Every fiber of her being wants Emma to take this final out, to keep the mark and the soulmate and the destiny she’s so desperate to escape. Every fiber of her being wants–

Emma nods, her lips pressed tightly together and her eyes squeezed shut, and she doesn’t see the agony on Regina’s face. Regina keeps her hand pressed to the mark, feels something echo deep within the space beneath her heart, and she closes her eyes and feels tears run down her cheeks as she uses her magic to erase Emma’s tattoo.

Her matching mark  _ screams _ , jolts with sharp pain that has her doubled over with a hand pressed to it; Emma, shaking at the loss, sees nothing.  _ Good _ , Regina thinks, in the instant that she can think.  _ Good _ . 

She feels empty, as though she’s been falling into a bottomless pit. She feels hollowed out and only a husk, broken to pieces all worthless and alone. She feels… 

She touches the smooth, clear skin where Emma’s tattoo had been and Emma doesn’t react at all this time. “Hi,” she says, opening her eyes, and her smile is simple and a little lighter than before. Her hand goes back to Regina’s hair, and she turns so she’s facing her again.

Regina can’t meet her smile. “I just remembered a report I needed to finish tonight,” she says, stumbling to her feet. “Take out the lasagna in ten minutes.” 

“Regina–” Emma starts, and Regina turns away, flees for the door before her face reveals too much to a soulmate who would be happier with anyone in the world but her, to a soulmate who can never know who she is. 

_ All I’m asking is to be free _ . Emma wants to  _ escape _ , and Regina’s another prison for her, one she’s soundly rejected without ever knowing its face. It isn’t  _ fair _ . They’d been so close and now… 

Emma can never know. 

  
“Bring the leftovers home for Henry,” she says numbly. She doesn’t turn around to see if Emma’s heard, just runs from the room and the house and to her car to finally have that long cry she’s been craving all day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was inspired by the prompt on [this list](http://queenssaviour.tumblr.com/post/156043051145/soulmate-au-story-ideas): _You remove your tattoo because you hate the idea of someone dictating who you can be with for the rest of your life and the person who’s removing it happens to be your soulmate and they’re torn between letting you know and just not bringing it up because you kind of went there because you didn’t want a soulmate and vice versa._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone cries way too much and I deliver on all the promises of angsty emo pining. Shoutout to the snow out here for making this happen tonight, ur a real pal~

Avoiding Emma winds up being a much simpler task than she’d thought it might be, to her relief and disappointment. Emma is in demand by all of Storybrooke, all the time, and it only takes a moment of ducking away before someone else has engaged her in conversation. Regina sees her face fall when she’s dragged off and feels… 

 

Empty. What had once been her single source of comfort in this post-curse world is a hellish torture now, a reminder of what she and Emma could have been. 

 

But Emma doesn’t want to know. Emma doesn’t  _ want  _ a soulmate, and Regina wants  _ Emma  _ so desperately that she can hardly breathe each time they still stumble into each other’s presence. “I...should get back to work,” she manages at Granny’s one afternoon. Emma had arrived when she’d already been on line, and she’s standing behind Regina with her fingers tucked into her jeans and her eyes searching. “I didn’t need coffee, anyway.” 

 

She breaks away from the line and Emma follows her, trailing behind her until they step out of Granny’s and Emma can grab her arm. “Regina, what the hell?” she demands, confrontational but still averting her eyes when Regina stares at her. “Why are you avoiding me? Why won’t you  _ talk  _ to me?” 

 

The response is automatic, prickly as she can manage. “If I recall, I was never the one initiating any of...this,” she says coolly. “I never asked for you to come– come knocking on my door in the first place.” She falters mid-sentence, betraying herself, and Emma’s stance shifts from defensive to distraught.

 

“I did something,” she whispers, her face draining of color. “I shouldn’t have asked you to–” She ducks her head, suddenly miserable, and Regina aches for her, aches to touch her hip where the mark had been, aches to trace the angles of her face until they relax into something smoother. 

 

“No,” she’s saying without thinking. “No, you can’t regret–” She  _ wants  _ Emma to, wants her to wish back her mark or beg Regina to restore it. But what she wants and what Emma needs are two entirely different things.

 

She hasn’t been this nauseatingly  _ noble  _ since she’d been a girl, and she trembles now at that realization. Emma’s hands are on her arms in an instant, her eyes sweeping over Regina with concern. “I don’t. Of course I don’t,” she hurries to reassure Regina, and Regina’s heart stutters at it. “I just…I don’t understand. I thought we…” Her voice trails off. 

 

Regina can’t keep her hands stiff at her sides, not when Emma is looking at her so beseechingly and Regina’s voice is rough with unshed tears. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lies, but her fingers brush Emma’s hair out of her face, tuck it behind her ears and stroke it again and again until she is betrayed by her own touch.

 

There are passersby staring, and Regina can’t bring herself to care. Emma stares at her, stricken, and takes a step back. “Oh,” she says, and gulps in a breath. She blinks twice before her eyes harden and she can look coolly at Regina again, and that coldness burns. “I guess I was wrong.” 

 

There’s still a note of yearning in her voice that she can’t quell, and Regina closes her eyes and whispers, “I’m sorry.” 

 

If Emma hears it, she shows no sign, and Regina stumbles a few steps before she regains her composure as Emma walks away. 

 

* * *

 

Snow and Charming are making their own plans to return to the Enchanted Forest, and Regina finds out about them and sets fire to a bean field. She might have been cursed with a lack of desire to hurt Emma Swan, but she can’t imagine a universe where Emma would be all that enthusiastic about going back to the place of her birth.

 

Emma’s home is  _ here _ , with Henry and with–

 

She’s walking toward the Charmings’ apartment before she can think it over, desperate to see Emma and know if she knows about this plan and has written Regina off, too. Henry must not know. She clings to that with all her might, even as she wonders about Emma’s loss of confidence in her. 

 

It’s her own fault. She’d pushed Emma away and now she…she’d seen Emma the day before, sitting in the diner with Neal and Henry and a woman she hadn’t recognized. They’d all been laughing together, at peace with faces glowing and eyes bright, and she’d stood in the middle of the sidewalk like a fool and watched them through the window with her hands shaking and her heart on fire.

 

She stands naked in front of her mirror now sometimes just to be sure that her mark hasn’t faded. It remains, a glaring reminder, and she thinks once about removing it and can’t bear to take it away. Not this one last bit of hope. (Not this one last bit of Emma.)

 

Emma opens the door to the apartment and her eyes widen. “Regina,” she says, and Regina knows instantly that Emma knows about the beans and her parents’ plans. She can hear it in her voice, can see it in the way that Emma’s heart is in her eyes and sick with guilt. “Regina,” Emma says again, a bit softer, and she glances behind her for a moment and then steps outside, shutting the door carefully behind her. “My parents are home,” she says by way of apology. 

 

Her eyes are still shuttered, blocked off from Regina as they haven’t been since she’d first come to Regina after Mother’s death. Regina longs for her and is resentful of it at the same time. “I want to see Henry,” she says instead, shifting to a safer topic. 

 

Emma takes a breath. “I know. I know you do. I just…don’t think that it’s a good idea when my parents are around.” She bites her lip. “Everyone’s on edge right now.” 

 

“Yes, I’m aware,” Regina snaps, and then swallows, forcing herself to remain calm. Emma’s face is opaque now, unreadable but for an uncomfortable tinge of hurt and guilt. Regina hates it. “When can I see him, then?” she demands, her voice still uneven. “Later tonight? Tomorrow morning? When you haul him off to the Enchanted Forest and leave me behind?” 

 

The smooth wall behind Emma’s eyes crumbles in an instant, and she’s soft again, reaching for Regina as Regina pulls away. “I’m working on it, okay?” she says, shooting another glance over her shoulder. “I’m trying to fix this. I’m–”

 

“You’re not the one in control here,” Regina hisses, frustrated and so tired. “So maybe it’s time you stopped trying to  _ fix  _ things you can’t change and  _ let me see my son _ .” 

 

Emma takes a step back, and now Regina can read the hurt on her face well enough that it stings. Emma presses her lips together. “Fine,” she says dully. “I’ll bring him out.”

 

And it’s  _ Henry _ , Henry’s going to be there, but somehow it still doesn’t feel like a victory. Henry will see her today and maybe they’ll reach some quiet affection that Regina will take, starved for anything she can have. In the morning, he’ll hear about the beanstalks she’d destroyed and he’ll want nothing to do with her again, and tonight will feel cheap and meaningless because of it. 

 

She freezes, the reality of it setting in, and says, “Wait.” 

 

Emma pauses with her hand on the door. “Wait,” Regina repeats, and it’s an agony even to suggest. “I don’t…I changed my mind.” 

 

Emma’s eyebrows shoot up. “You changed your mind about seeing Henry,” she says, turning to face her. “You.” Regina is suddenly being  _ examined _ , studied for a truth that she should have hidden better, and Emma’s eyes are dark and hard as she finds her answer. “You did something, didn’t you?” 

 

“Emma–” Losing Emma’s confidence shouldn’t be this devastating, and yet it’s enough to have her pleading, to have her forget every justified entitlement to  _ fighting back  _ and beg. “Please, Emma, don’t–” She lurches forward to Emma, desperate to find the Emma who still smiles at her; instead, Emma takes a step back. 

 

And she’s angry and helpless and  _ god _ , she just wants Emma’s smile. “I did what anyone would have done! And don’t tell me you wanted to– to go back there, because I  _ know  _ you.” 

 

Emma’s face is frozen. “I don’t think you do,” she says stiffly. 

 

“I don’t think you want to live in the woods with your shepherd lout of a father,” Regina snarls. “I don’t think you want to give up anything about this world aside from  _ them _ , and what– what happened to fighting destiny?” she finishes helplessly, because why had destiny only been the enemy when it had been about  _ Regina _ ? “What happened to being someone other than the model daughter–” 

 

“Stop it,” Emma says sharply. “Just  _ stop it _ .” She’s still so closed off but Regina knows that she’s hitting her target from the way that Emma’s standing immobile in front of her, a hand still on the the door.

 

And penetrating Emma’s defenses somehow is better than doing nothing at all, so Regina says, “I can’t be a model daughter anymore. Your mother made sure of it.” Emma meets her gaze, expressionless. “But I won’t be locked up ever again.” Finally, Emma averts her gaze. 

 

“I don’t want you to be,” she says in a low tone. “I really have been fighting for you. I get– I get that you don’t want me to, though. I get it loud and clear.” She finally opens the door.

 

Regina reaches for her, sighs out an  _ Emma _ that’s barely a breath, and Emma ducks away from her hand and back into her apartment without a single glance back. 

 

_ Fine _ , Regina thinks, furious at Emma and herself but nowhere near as furious as she is with everyone else. She’d given this a  _ chance  _ but there are no more chances, and she returns to her office to await the Charmings’ revenge.

 

She saves only a few beans after the fire, and then she’s caught in a new whirlwind of plots and plans. She thinks of vengeance, of a trigger that would bring this world to its knees, and she’s just miserable enough to consider it. Let this whole town go up in flames. Let them all  _ die _ , taking her with them, and let only Henry and Emma be able to escape. 

 

She retrieves the trigger, only to stumble into a trap laid by a man she remembers from long ago. And then she’s strapped to a table and remembers only pain.

 

* * *

 

 

Agony. She’s trapped in that room for so long that she loses all concept of time. She can’t move, can’t cry out for help, and no one–  _ no one _ knows that she’s gone. Maybe they don’t want to know. She’s been locked away in her house for long enough that the only reason anyone would notice would be if Snow had found her beanstalks ravaged.

 

Now she’ll die, tortured to oblivion by one of her victims, a fitting death for an evil queen. She refuses to give him the satisfaction of seeing her despair– of  _ despairing _ , of surrender. If Mother couldn’t break her– if the king couldn’t– she will not be broken by a boy with a grudge.

 

Her body is broken, her mind barely functioning, and she closes her eyes and thinks of Henry. She can remember smiles and kisses and moments when she’d finally felt like a  _ person _ for the first time in decades, moments when she’d finally felt right. She clings to them now, determined, at least, that her final thoughts be of Henry.

 

Owen raises the electric charge, and she can see in his eyes that this is the end. He’s going to kill her.  _ Henry. Henry.  _ She thinks hopelessly of him, prays to fate that Emma will know to take him out of town before the trigger is activated.

 

But her last thought is of a sunburst with a web running through it, a black mark against the fair skin of Emma’s hip, and she can feel the sob threaten to emerge.

 

_ Hold off, hold off, don’t let him see– _

 

* * *

 

She wakes again, and it isn’t to emptiness. She’s alive. She’s alive, and she aches, but the all-encompassing pain is all gone and someone is dabbing at her face with a damp cloth.  _ Snow _ .

 

She doesn’t understand, can’t do more than rasp out, “You.” Snow looks down at her, and her own eyes are wet with unshed tears and something hard and distrustful and regretful. “You saved me,” she rasps out, uncomprehending. 

 

“Yes,” Snow says, her voice thick and wavering, and for an instant, Regina can see a young girl in her eyes, a child whom she’d once loved and loathed in equal measure.

 

“You really think we’d let you die?” David murmurs, and Regina can’t stop the tears anymore, can’t do more than turn away from them as agony and confusion and disbelief all build to a crescendo within her. Snow watches her in silence, her hands on her lap, and it’s a relief to explain the trigger to her, to argue with her about her plans and Snow’s plans and who’s been more justified.  _ This– _ fighting with Snow is something safe, far safer than being saved by her.

 

David says, “I’ll go get Emma. Henry’s due back from school in a few minutes, anyway,” and steps away from them mid-argument.  _ Emma _ . Regina aches and turns away.

 

Snow says softly, once he’s gone, “Gold gave me a potion when we couldn’t find you. It let me– it let me feel everything you’re feeling.” She’s blinking back tears again, her hands shaking on her lap, and Regina looks away. “It hasn’t worn off yet,” she admits. “It’s…god, Regina, there was so much pain. There’s still so much pain.” 

 

“What did you expect?” Regina murmurs, but she’s still wet-eyed, limp on this bed in safety with the people who are supposed to hate her, and Snow lays her hand over Regina’s and Regina can’t pull away.

 

There’s a sound from the loft and then David is heading down, Emma behind him, and Regina sucks in a breath at Emma’s red-eyed stare as it catches hers. Snow sucks in a breath, too, and Regina tears her eyes from Emma as she sees the dawning comprehension in Snow’s eyes. 

 

There are emotions she can’t conceal, feelings Snow can read as easily as a spell, and Snow glances from Emma back to Regina and then smiles, almost sadly, and says, “David, why don’t we go pick up Henry and get Ruby on Greg and Tamara’s scent?” 

 

David frowns, glancing at Emma. Emma is still watching Regina, and Regina can feel the tears in her throat instead of her eyes. David says, “But Emma…” 

 

“She just lost Neal,” Snow says softly, and Regina blinks at Snow, blinks back at Emma. “Let’s give her some time to process. Make sure Regina won’t run off,” she says halfheartedly, though they all know Regina isn’t going anywhere. Not when she’s still healing. Not when Henry is coming.

 

But she takes her husband and leads him out the door, and Emma takes Snow’s place beside Regina’s bed. She’s crying now, silent tears as she reaches out to touch Regina, and Regina says faintly, “All this over Neal?” 

 

“Shut up,” Emma murmurs, the tears flowing free, and she leans over and presses her lips to Regina’s forehead. Regina can feel them as they land against her skin, as Emma’s kiss trembles and her hand lands, improbably, on the exact spot of her blazer where it rests over Regina’s tattoo. She doesn’t know, she can’t know, and maybe she doesn’t understand when Regina begins to cry, too, feeling Emma’s touch as  _ safety  _ and  _ home _ and a dozen other emotions she doesn’t dare to name after the ordeal that she’d just escaped.

 

But Emma’s hands caress her cheeks, brush tears away, and she finally pulls away and gives Regina a tremulous smile. “I thought…I thought you’d  _ died _ ,” she whispers finally. “When my parents brought you in. I thought you were dead and our last fight had been…”

 

“I know,” Regina whispers, and she catches a glittering tear on her finger. “I know.” She knows what she has to do now, too, and she won’t leave Emma with regrets. Not this time. So she sits still as Emma kisses her forehead again, holds Emma’s hands in hers, and says nothing about what stopping the trigger is going to take.

 

* * *

 

Henry runs into her arms when Snow brings him back, and she nearly falls to the ground with the force of it, stumbles back against the bed and holds him tighter when he tries to pull away to check on her. She’s still on the verge of new tears after her time with Emma, but it’s easier to control now. She has to put on a good show for all of them and make sure they don’t suspect what comes next.

 

They would  _ care _ , and something about knowing that firms her resolve to do it anyway.

 

She’s still clinging to Henry, Henry’s face buried in her shoulder and his arms tight enough that she can feel her bones aching within his embrace, and she kisses the top of his head and can’t let go until he finally does. “Mom,” he says, his eyes wide as he looks her over. “No one could find you.” 

 

“I was…briefly abducted,” she says, grateful that Snow had, for the first time in her life, kept quiet about something. “But I’m here now, sweetheart.” She touches his cheeks, memorizes the way he looks at her like he loves her, holds the image close to her heart. Emma is watching them from behind Henry, her brow furrowed and her eyes soft and concerned as she looks them over. Regina manages a matching look for her. 

 

Henry looks around for a moment, at this room with his mothers and grandparents within it, and then back at Regina with so much hope that her heart catches in her throat. “You’re all working together?” 

 

Regina manages a nod, and Henry’s face blossoms into a wide smile. He leans back, comfortable as Emma’s arm slides around to catch him, and he grins up at Emma and then back to Regina with so much relief that she can only feel guilt for not having taken this step before. 

 

Ruby reports back and they’re back to business moments later, as the ground begins to rock beneath them. “We don’t have much time,” Snow says worriedly. 

 

“Well, figure it out,” Regina snaps, falling into old habits with the swiftness of a high-stress situation.

 

Emma is the one to step between them. “She isn’t the one who had this trigger in the first place,” she says calmly, a warning in her eyes. “Or who planned to kill us all.” There’s a quiver of something in her voice.  _ Hurt _ , of course, because she takes it all too personally when it’s about the two of them. “We don’t have time for this.” 

 

Regina waits until they’re headed to the mines together, Henry safe with the Charmings, before she says hesitantly, “I didn’t plan to kill you.” Emma pauses. Regina hurries on. “I thought– I thought you’d leave Storybrooke with Henry and escape the blast. I thought I might take you both away from here, if I’d survived it.” 

 

Emma shines her flashlight into the dim caverns, her eyes facing determinedly forward. “Why are you telling me this?” 

 

Regina doesn’t answer. Emma says abruptly, “It feels like the oxygen is being sucked out of the air.” 

 

“Not the oxygen,” Regina corrects her, and  _ oh _ , does it feel like something else entirely to have someone else around who can feel it, too. “The magic.” They round a corner and find the trigger hovering in the darkness, glowing blue as it pulls more magic from around it. “Once it stops glowing, its destruction is achieved. And then...well, then we’ll see the real carnage.” 

 

She gets into position as Emma stands behind the trigger, staring into the blue light as though it might have answers for her, and only once Emma starts talking about magic beans and how they’re going to remove the trigger does Regina take a breath and say, “Slowing the device…it’s going to require all the strength I have.” She’s too weak now, still recovering from her ordeal, and she’s barely at half power. 

 

Emma’s head jerks up and she looks hard at Regina. Regina struggles to smile, weak and her eyes already gleaming with tears, and Emma says, “ _ No _ .” She’s shaking her head wildly. “Henry–” 

 

“Henry should know…” It’s more and more difficult to breathe now, to contain tears in this hollow magic-draining mine. “It wasn’t too late for me to do the right thing. You were right. This is all my fault. It’s only fitting that it takes…that it takes my life.” 

 

“Regina, I am not watching you die. Not after–” The words stick in Emma’s throat and she shakes her head wildly. “God, I was mad earlier but I didn’t  _ mean  _ it. Regina, please–” 

 

“Everyone looks at me as the Evil Queen,” Regina whispers, and she’s sliding on a precipice, as desperate for Emma as she is for this final sacrifice. She can’t waver. “Let me die as Regina.” 

 

Emma reaches for her, still shaking her head but without the words to accompany her distress. “Regina,” she chokes out, and maybe that’s a response in itself. Maybe it’s only that Emma sees what no one else has. “Regina, I–” 

 

_ No _ . She knows at once that she can’t hear what it is that Emma says next, can’t be dissuaded from doing the only thing that she can to save everyone. She’s going to  _ save  _ them. Her son might not need her anymore. Her soulmate might not want her. But she’s going to save them, and she plunges her hands over the trigger and lets the magic take her. 

 

The tears finally flow free again, and she doesn’t look up until Emma backs away and turns, running from the mines as Regina’s eyes wash over and blur until all she can see is the glowing trigger.

 

* * *

 

They come back, Emma and Henry and the Charmings. Regina is furious, is helpless, isn’t going to save anyone at all in the end and she sobs into her magic, begs them all to  _ leave _ and gets only stubborn faces and  _ that makes you a hero  _ from Henry. 

 

_ A hero _ . Futile, as any hero might be. She shakes and struggles to breathe and Emma flees into her parents’ embrace, the three of them holding each other tightly as Henry pokes his head out of the group hug and runs to her instead. “I love you, Henry,” she chokes out, and her eyes rise up as she says it to find Emma’s, unconsciously. “I only wish I was strong enough to stop this.” 

 

Emma catches her eyes and hold them, and the grief and fear are gone in an instant. Instead, there’s something bright in her gaze, an emotion alien to Regina for so long.  _ Hope _ . “You may not be strong enough,” she breathes, pulling away from her parents. “But maybe we are.” 

 

She stands opposite Regina in front of the trigger and–  _ magic _ , suddenly, like fresh air that Regina can breathe. Emma’s eyes are glowing, her face anxious and focused and locked on Regina’s, and Regina can’t stop the smile as much as she can’t stop the way her tattoo seems to burn into her in that moment, warm and  _ nourished  _ in a way that she’d never imagined before. It gives her strength she can hardly believe, gives her more life, and it’s only moments before they’re both thrown backward and the trigger is deactivated at last.

 

Emma is rubbing her left hip when she stands, and Regina doesn’t dare believe that that means anything. David pulls her up and Emma takes a step to her, another step, and Snow is murmuring something in David’s ear and tugging him back. 

 

“Emma,” Regina murmurs, reaching for Emma, and Emma is beaming, blinking back tears as she takes Regina’s hands, and they’re going to– she can’t, but  _ god _ , there’s the flush of victory on Emma’s face and Regina is ready to– right in front of Snow, in front of David, in front of–

 

“Henry,” Regina says, and Emma blinks at her before she understands. “Where is Henry?”

 

He’s  _ gone _ , and Regina hadn’t felt fear like this when she’d been about to die. Greg and Tamara take him through a portal, and Regina and Emma take a bean, and a ship, and they’re hurtling after their son at top speed, the world falling apart only within them as they follow.

 

* * *

 

Neverland is dark and quiet and a mess of forest underbrush, and Regina is on edge as Emma struggles to find a path through it. “We need to stay calm,” Emma reminds her as they’re crouched around the fire the first night.

 

“You stay calm. I’m a little too preoccupied for  _ calm _ ,” Regina snaps, swinging around to glare into the jungle. 

 

Emma takes a sharp breath, and Regina knows that she’s hurt and can’t take her mind off Henry to care. Much. “I thought we were a team.” 

 

“You’re a team,” Regina says, waving vaguely at Snow and David where they’re snuggled together on the other side of the fire. “One happy family outing or whatever the hell they think they’re doing. I’m here for Henry.” 

 

“We all are. You know that,” Emma says in a low voice, and Regina knows that she isn’t  _ helping _ , knows that they’re all better off if they can get along, but she’s floundering. Henry is missing. Henry is  _ missing _ . And she’d nearly kissed Emma, but she isn’t thinking about that.

 

It was a mistake. She’d known it even as she’d been tempted, had been quick to seize a distraction. Emma looks at her and she wants to sob, wants to pull her closer, wants to tell her the  _ truth _ – the only truth Emma had ever asked Regina to keep from her. If Regina never does anything else that is good in her decades of evil and living in the dark, at least she’ll have done this one agonizingly selfless deed.

 

It aches. It makes her want to  _ scream _ , makes her want to lurch toward Emma and kiss her hard enough that she stops caring about soulmates and destiny and what they’d meant to her. It’s left her antsy and frustrated and irritable, and she’s taking it out on Emma and knows it. 

 

“Fine,” Emma says at her silence. “I’m going to go find something to drink.” She stomps away from the fire, her jaw working under her skin, and David detaches from Snow at Snow’s prodding and sets out after her.

 

Regina expects it when Snow shifts to sit beside her at the fire, wrists leaning on her knees so she can warm her fingers. “I think this is the point where I ask you what your intentions are with my daughter,” she says wryly.

 

Regina scowls into the flames. “I don’t have any  _ intentions  _ with her. You misread the situation.” 

 

“Hm,” Snow says, her voice contemplative, and Regina is annoyed at her tone. 

 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” 

 

Snow shrugs. “I know how you feel about her. I could  _ feel  _ it. It was…” She hesitates, her eyes shining with wonder. “Regina, the way you…”

 

“Enough,” Regina says hastily, before Snow starts singing odes to her feelings for Emma. “It doesn’t matter. Emma doesn’t want…that.” 

 

Snow is already shaking her head. “You can’t believe that. Emma’s been sneaking out for weeks, making excuses to see you and so…Regina, she went to you when she was upset, but she also went to you when she was  _ happy _ . I think you underestimate what you mean to her.” 

 

“She underestimates it more,” Regina mutters, and Snow looks at her curiously. “You’re wrong,” she says. “You have no grasp of this situation. I’m…” Her voice is shaky, and Snow’s hand is on her back at once, tentative but still firm. Regina shudders. “I’m trying to do the right thing, for a change.” 

 

“Regina,” Snow murmurs, gazing up at her. That searching gaze is the same from mother to daughter, and Regina sits back, uncomfortable with Snow seeing her so exposed. “You know, I think that…I think this would have been a nightmare for me, not so long ago. You and Emma?” 

 

“There is no–” 

 

“But you really do love her, don’t you?” Snow says, and Regina swallows through the lump in her throat before she can come up with something stinging. Snow smiles at her, as though she knows her so well, and shifts back around to the other side of the fire without a word.

 

* * *

 

Snow’s nonsense aside, Regina does make a stronger effort to play nice. Her insults lack some bite and Emma relaxes a bit around her, and then Peter Pan lets a name slip and she freezes up again. 

 

_ Tinkerbell _ . The fairy who’d lost her wings while bringing Regina to her soulmate– a soulmate, Regina knows now, hadn’t existed at all at the time when she’d been brought to that tavern. Emma leads the search for Tinkerbell, who might be their– and Henry’s– ticket out of Neverland, and Regina hangs back and tries not to fuck this up for Henry.

 

Instead, she’s captured by the fairy, and it takes a heated argument and handing over her her heart– literally– before Tink finally sees reason and joins her instead. Emma charges into a clearing with a sword brandished and her eyes flashing–  _ Where is she?  _ and Regina steps out before Tink is struck down. “I’m here. I’m fine,” she says, holding up her hands placatingly. “We’ve reached an accord.” Tink nods vigorously, eyes flickering from Regina to Emma.

 

Later, Regina says, “You know, you were wrong. That man wasn’t my soulmate.” They’re sitting against a tree while the Charmings are talking strategy across the clearing, Emma rocking back on the balls of her feet and shooting glances over at them.

 

Tink sniffs. “Pixie dust doesn’t lie.”

 

“What does it do if a soulmate hasn’t been born yet?” Regina asks, an unconscious hand resting against the spot below her heart. 

 

Tink has no answer. 

 

It isn’t until it’s nighttime again that Emma finds her alone and sits down, leaning on a rock opposite Regina’s tree. “This whole…you-almost-dying thing,” she says after a long silence. Regina blinks up at her. Emma says, “It’s really getting old.” She flashes Regina a timid smile.

 

Regina doesn’t understand, not how Emma can still approach and still protect and still smile at her when she  _ knows  _ she’s been unbearable, and her eyes soften despite herself. “You don’t have to keep saving me,” she murmurs, and there’s no sting to it.

 

“And yet.” But Emma’s still smiling at her, still with sunshine in her eyes, and Regina is just starved enough for it in the gloom of Neverland that she can’t pull away from it.

 

Instead, she blurts out, “Tinkerbell took me to see my soulmate.” Emma’s smile fades. “Before. When I was the queen.” 

 

“I thought you didn’t…” Emma stumbles on the word. “I thought you didn’t have one.” Her fingers fidget as though they somehow know the wrongness of that statement, know the truth that their master doesn’t. “You said–” 

 

“I didn’t,” Regina says hastily. “Not even a mark, back then. Tink was convinced that I still had  _ someone _ , and she used pixie dust to show me a man in a tavern.” She remembers the dread at the possibility, the relief of freedom when she’d slammed the tavern door shut. Emma is leaning forward, her face carefully bare of expression, but her whole body intent on what Regina says. “He…had some kind of tattoo of a lion on his wrist. Not a soulmate tattoo. Maybe he didn’t have one, either, and so the pixie dust defaulted…” 

 

She shakes her head. “I didn’t meet him then. I’m glad I didn’t,” she adds, mostly to herself. 

 

She’s almost forgotten that Emma’s present until Emma says, her voice strained, “Do you think Tink was right about him?” She’s still leaning forward, arms almost hugging her body in the cool night air, and her eyes are wary when they’d been shining before. “That he was…”  

 

“No.” She knows it now with a certainty there’d never been before Emma. “No, he wasn’t.” 

 

“Okay,” Emma says. “Oh.” She smiles again, faint but with that shine returning, and says, “Well, we’re a matched set then, right?” Regina jerks, her eyes wide, and Emma looks at her oddly and says, “I mean, neither of us has a soulmate. It’s kind of freeing, you know?” 

 

Regina doesn’t trust herself to answer, but she offers Emma a wobbly smile. If Emma notices the twinge of agony in it, she must ascribe it to Henry, because she squeezes Regina’s hand and says no more.

 

* * *

 

David has nearly gotten himself killed, naturally, because nothing is ever so competently executed when the Charmings are afoot. On the upside, Tinkerbell offers to lead Snow and David to a potential cure, and Regina is left alone with Emma. 

 

On the downside, Regina is left alone with Emma. There’s still something buzzing between them, something that leaves them both on edge and cranky, but it’s still better than being trapped with the whole group. If not, well… safer.

 

But they do both have the same priority, and it’s Henry– at any cost. They kidnap a Lost Boy and Regina takes his heart, sending him back to Henry with an enchanted mirror.

 

And then  _ Henry _ , staring at them wide-eyed from the mirror’s pair. “Moms!” 

 

“Henry!” Emma does the talking, Regina struck dumb by seeing him again, healthy and intact and only a little afraid. “We’re coming for you, okay? Hang in there.” Henry nods, eyes moving between them like they’re his lifeline. Emma beams at him, eyes bright with so much love that it steals Regina’s breath away. “You’ve got two badass moms on the warpath. We’re going to save you. I promise.” 

 

Henry glances behind him. “Someone’s coming. I have to go,” he says, and their smiles falter.

 

Regina finally finds her voice. “We love you,” she manages, and Henry gives them a quick smile and drops the mirror. It cracks, the lines appearing across their mirror as well, and Regina lets out a strangled sob and sinks to the ground. 

 

Emma drops down beside her. “We’ll find him,” she says, and this time, Regina believes it. “We saw him,” Emma murmurs, and she sounds amazed. “We really…”

 

“We saw our son,” Regina echoes wonderingly, and Emma twists to stare at her, still on a high from Henry, and she clasps her hands to Regina’s cheeks and kisses her.

 

It’s a single, exuberant kiss, the kind that had almost happened in the mines and doesn’t have to  _ mean  _ anything, but Regina is still riding the same high and has forgotten all her reasons why she can’t kiss Emma Swan. She doesn’t pull away even when Emma hesitates, drinks in the kiss and digs her fingers into Emma’s bare shoulders and bites Emma’s lip until Emma groans, “Regina,” and presses her back against a tree.

 

Regina hums with approval, yanking Emma closer until she’s on her lap and Regina can slide her fingers down to cup her ass and tug her closer still. Emma chokes a garbled response and buries her face in Regina’s neck, sucking voraciously until Regina’s head is thrown back. She licks the hollow of Regina’s throat and bites her collarbone, kissing a trail down the exposed skin where her shirt is unbuttoned.

 

“You’ve had your shirt unbuttoned to your bra for days,” Emma gasps into her skin. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been doing it on purpose.” 

 

“I’ve been hot,” Regina says, outraged– if outrage sounds a lot like heavy breathing, rocking against Emma as she slides her fingers into the seat of Emma’s pants, digging under her panties to palm the skin below them.

 

Emma laughs, vibrating against her breastbone. “I’ve noticed.” Regina rolls her eyes, moving her hands to Emma’s chest to push her away, and Emma tumbles back onto the soft ground of the clearing. Regina follows, crouches over her, a hand wrapping around one breast and the other reaching up to bury itself in Emma’s hair while Regina kisses her. 

 

She can’t remember  _ at all  _ why she hadn’t wanted to do this, searches her mind and finds it filled to the brim with  _ Emma, Emma _ , Emma’s hips slamming up into Regina’s side as Regina lets her tongue run along Emma’s teeth, teasing at the spots that make her gasp. She thumbs a nipple over Emma’s clothes and Emma grabs her hand and shoves it under her shirt, arching against Regina’s touch on her bare skin.

 

“Patience,” Regina murmurs reprovingly, the flush of enjoyment on her cheeks betraying her tone, and Emma scoffs and presses the heel of her hand into the crotch of Regina’s pants. A bolt of pleasure shoots through her, and she jolts, grinding desperately against Emma’s hand as she tears her shirt off.

 

Emma lies in front of her, exposed, and it isn’t  _ enough _ , it isn’t– Regina tears off Emma’s pants as Emma tugs on Regina’s, sliding them off, and then they’re bare legs entwined and Regina yanks at Emma’s underwear and leans down to run her tongue over Emma’s clit. “Fuck,” Emma bites out, her knees clamping against Regina’s head. “Fuck, fuck…” 

 

_ Fuck _ , and Regina’s fingers join her tongue at Emma’s folds, slide into Emma until Emma’s thrashing beneath her and sobbing her name, and there’s something important Regina’s forgetting and can’t care very much why. Emma digs her hands into Regina’s hair, pulling painfully, and Regina twists her tongue and fingers and pulls them back and dives in again until Emma screams. 

 

She pumps her fingers again, grazes her teeth against sensitive skin as she tugs out Emma’s release, longer and longer and a thousand little waves that shudder against her mouth. Emma’s pressing her down unconsciously, holding her down so tightly that she can hardly breathe, and when Emma’s body finally goes limp, Regina’s skin is on fire with need. 

 

“Come here,” Emma whispers, still boneless and sprawled out on the ground, and Regina climbs up her body and presses kisses to her face. Emma blinks up at her, her eyes glowing with bare affection, and she manages to lift one hand to cup Regina’s cheek. “Beautiful,” she hums. “Want you.” 

 

“Always want you,” Regina manages, and then Emma is finding her strength again, rolling them over so she can bite Regina’s shoulder and unbutton her shirt at last. Her bra follows, Emma kissing one breast and then the other, and she squeezes deftly until Regina is trembling again with need. 

 

She’s too sensitized, too attuned to every one of Emma’s touches, and her hands cover Emma’s hips as Emma bites gently at her nipple, tugging it out. She licks it and Regina lets out a loud moan, fingernails digging into Emma’s ass and her center aching for Emma’s touch. 

 

Emma kisses between her breasts and reaches out, very swiftly, and flicks a finger over Regina’s clit as her mouth moves southward. Regina jerks, the single touch nearly enough, and then Emma’s lips hit a spot just below her breasts and freeze.

 

It shoots through Regina’s core like a thousand volts of electricity, like nothing she’s ever felt before, and her whole body jolts, slams into Emma’s and builds and falls with a crashing release that has her crying out, nothing like Emma’s strangled scream from earlier. It’s louder,  _ she’s _ louder, she’s a cacophony and an explosion and a trembling mass of nerves that hit so hard that her vision goes fuzzy and then black for a moment.

 

She falls back onto the ground, stunned, and Emma doesn’t follow her, doesn’t curl up beside her or kiss her or–

 

Emma’s hand is still on the spot that had set Regina off, and Regina squints up at her and thinks she must still be seeing things wrong. Why else would Emma look so… so…

 

_ Horrified _ . 

 

Regina scrambles back, her faculties returning with the sobering look on Emma’s face. “What’s wrong? Is someone here?” she says, but Emma’s eyes are still glued on her body, just below her–

 

Oh. Oh, god. “Emma,” she says urgently, but Emma doesn’t react. It’s as though she can’t hear anything, as though her senses have been completely limited to that single patch of Regina’s skin. “Emma, it’s not what you think–”

 

Emma doesn’t look up. “The story you told me. About that man with the lion tattoo. That was a lie?” her voice is wavering, empty and still cracking as she stares. 

 

“No. No, Emma, I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t get my mark until–” Regina sucks in a breath. “Until the day of the curse. I thought I never would.”

 

“ _ My  _ mark,” Emma says numbly. “You got… _ my  _ mark.” She spits it out like a curse, and Regina flinches, reaching for her shirt to cover it up again. 

 

Emma’s hand stops her, reaching out again to touch the mark on Regina’s skin, and Regina shudders despite herself at the heat that curls around her core. “You saw…when you took my mark off…you knew we were…” She shivers, her fingers trembling, as though she can’t bear to say the word. 

 

Regina doesn’t say it, either. “You wanted it gone,” she says helplessly.

 

“And you were only too happy to remove it,” Emma bites out, and she turns around, yanks on her shirt and her jeans and makes a beeline for the other side of the clearing. Regina stumbles into her own clothes, her shirt still unbuttoned, and hurries after her.

 

“Emma,” she says, her voice smaller than it’s been in a long time, and when Emma turns around, her eyes are wet and hard and angry. 

 

“I get it, okay? You didn’t want me to be…” 

 

“I wanted you more than anything!” Regina snaps, frustrated and lost and desperate to break through to Emma. “I saw that mark and it was…it all suddenly made sense, Henry and the curse and you and me. But you wanted it gone! You didn’t want to know your soulmate!” 

 

“Stop,” Emma says, her voice shaking.

 

“ _ Soulmate _ ,” Regina repeats, biting out the word. “I’ve been trying to be  _ good _ , Emma, to give you what you wanted, please–” She’s begging now, terrified of Emma backing away, and she’ll admit  _ anything _ , tell Emma anything she needs to stay. “I  _ love _ you,” she says urgently.

 

Emma squeezes her eyes shut but the tears leak out anyway, streak down her cheeks in awful, jagged lines. “I think I liked it better when I thought you didn’t want me,” she whispers, and Regina takes a step back as Emma lifts her face again, red-eyed. “I spent…all this time trying to escape my destiny and you…” She takes a shuddering breath. “You were supposed to be my safe place.” 

 

Regina can feel her throat closing up, can feel the threat of a breakdown now, on the precipice of dissolving into the same despair. “This doesn’t change anything,” she whispers. 

 

“This changes  _ everything _ .” Emma stares at her, breathing hard, and she says hopelessly, “You love me? You saw a tattoo and you decided that you– that you–” She scrubs at her face with her hands, presses the heels of her hands over her eyes to stop the tears.

 

“Emma,  _ no _ .” But Emma’s already walking away, ignoring her pleading. “Emma–” 

 

Emma spins around, red-rimmed eyes on fire. “I am so tired of...of breaking down all the time over every single–” She cuts herself off. “Everything since the curse has broken has been  _ fucked up _ . And I’ve been trying not to drown, and then we–” She lurches forward and puts an unexpectedly gentle hand on Regina’s cheek, brushing tangled hair from her face. “It felt right with you.” 

 

“Yes,” Regina whispers, because hadn’t it been the same for her, too? They’re mortal enemies, set up to be forever opposed; yet they’d both been floundering and found the other as a life preserver.

 

Emma shakes her head. “And it was all a lie,” she hisses, but her fingers are still on Regina’s skin, soft as her eyes grow stormier. “You kept this from me.” 

 

“It was the only thing you asked of me,” Regina says, nearly soundlessly, and Emma’s hand grows stiff against her face. 

 

She drops it jerkily, her eyes unreadable. This time, when she walks away, Regina doesn’t follow.

 

* * *

 

Still, though, they get along. There are sharp asides and irritable comments, but Henry is their priority and they both know it. Regina negotiates with a mermaid she’d once stolen a voice from and Emma stands with her solemnly. Regina teaches Emma magic under Snow’s watchful eye until they’re squabbling. Regina calls Emma  _ a pathetic waste of ability  _ and Emma calls Regina  _ a monster  _ and ten minutes later, they’re kissing behind a cluster of trees until Emma backs away, eyes wide, and says, “I’m sorry. I can’t do this. I’m–” And she flees from their spot.

 

But they still save Henry with bare moments to go. Regina pulls his heart from Pan’s and thrusts it into his chest again, and they’re wrapped into a three-way embrace an instant later, holding onto Henry and each other with the exhilaration of relief. Emma is watching her when she looks up from Henry, her eyes shining with so much affection that Regina can’t breathe again, and Regina says unsteadily, “I’ll tuck you in,” and takes Henry belowdecks of the ship they’d stolen.

 

She curls up beside him on a narrow bed, unwilling to let him go so easily, and he snuggles into her side drowsily and says, “You really are a hero now, Mom. You saved me.” 

 

They might have different definitions of what  _ hero  _ means, but being Henry’s hero is enough for her eyes to well up and for her to lie beside him, at peace for the first time in months. 

 

Maybe not the first time. 

 

Emma pokes her head in after Henry’s already asleep and Regina’s eyes are closed, and she tiptoes toward the bed as Regina cracks open one eye to watch her. She crouches down beside Henry, smoothes down his hair and cups his cheek and puts a hand to his chest as though checking for a heartbeat. Regina closes her eyes again, evening out her breath, and Emma’s hand moves to her heart instead.

 

No– to the space just below it, where her tattoo is. There’s a shuddering breath in the silence, and then a whispered, “Thank you, Regina. Thank you,” and Emma kisses Henry’s forehead, fingers brushing against Regina’s cheek as she does in a simulacrum of a second kiss, and flees the room with light, quiet steps.

 

She doesn’t look at Regina when Regina emerges to the upper decks to watch Tink and David steering the ship. There are Lost Boys everywhere, Snow weaving through them and making sure they’re all warm, and Emma is watching the waves break along the side of the ship. Tink guides them home and there’s cheering– for  _ her _ after Snow demands it, to her bafflement and wonder– and then Henry says, “I want to come home with you,” and Emma pulls away from the crowd.

 

The next day, when Emma insists that Henry isn’t Henry at all, Regina believes she’s just jealous.

 

She’s wrong, and they’re all wrong, and by the time Pan is removed from Henry’s body and killed, he’s already set things in motion that will destroy them all.

 

“Regina. Regina!” Emma says urgently, shaking her from a reverie– no, a dream, where she sees what’s about to happen. There are green clouds and a dark curse, a new curse without a savior where they’ll all be miserable and lost until the end of time. Pan had planned this before he’d been killed,  _ a new Neverland _ , and the only escape from it is death.

 

She opens her eyes and Emma and Henry are there, bent over her, and she reaches up to cup Henry’s cheek. She’d felt strong earlier, when she and Emma had wrapped protective arms around Henry and waited for Pan to attack. She doesn’t feel strong now. She feels certain, determined, and she knows already that what she has to do next will break her. “What is it?” Emma demands frantically. “If the curse is coming. What’s our price?” 

 

“It isn’t your price,” Regina murmurs, though of course it is, too. Emma’s going to lose…everything, except what matters most. “It’s mine. I have to say goodbye to the thing I love most.” Emma stares at her, deer-in-headlights, until Henry takes a step forward toward them.

 

“No,” Emma whispers, but there are no other options. Henry and Emma can escape this curse as no one else can, and Henry and Emma will pay the price that Regina will. Whatever fragile family they’ve found together is about to be shattered in two, and Emma looks as though her heart is breaking.

 

Snow takes over, gentle with Emma as she’d been as Mary Margaret. “Emma, you have to go.” There are tears in her eyes, but hope, too. Regina will never understand her.

 

“I just found you,” Emma says, plaintive as a child, and Regina’s heart shudders in her chest. “I’m supposed to– I’m supposed to be the savior. I’m supposed to bring back the happy endings.” 

 

“Happy endings aren’t always what we think they’ll be,” Snow says, smiling through her tears. “Look around you.” 

 

And Emma and Regina’s gazes meet and hold, Emma desperate and Regina with a curious sort of resignation within her. “You’ve touched the lives of everyone here,” Snow continues, and Regina nods, barely perceptibly, as Emma blinks back tears.

 

They drive to the town line as the curse begins to overtake the town, their crowd the final line of defense against it. Regina sits in the back seat of the Bug with Henry pressed to her side, David stiff beside her and Snow with her hand on Emma’s arm as Emma drives. “We don’t have much time,” Regina rasps out, and Henry buries his face in her arm, whispering  _ Mom  _ into her coat.

 

It’s been nearly two years since she’d last thought he might love her, and now he’s going away. He’s going away with the only other person she loves, and she trembles as she holds him to her, glances into the rearview mirror and sees Emma staring at them from it. 

 

She can’t bear telling her about the last part of this curse, not until the last possible moment when the curse bears down on them. For all the turmoil of the last year, she knows that Emma wouldn’t give up any of it. But there’s no choice.

 

_ My gift to you is good memories _ , she promises Emma, and Emma looks at her hopelessly.  _ A good life for you and Henry– _

 

“You’ll have never given him up,” she says, and her voice cracks and she can’t stay calm anymore. “You’ll have always been together.” 

 

Emma shakes her head, her eyes still wet and vulnerable as they’ve never been before, glued to Regina as though Regina might still be her salvation. “But it won’t be real.”

 

“Your past won’t,” Regina concedes, and she’s holding Emma’s hand in hers. It’s a far cry from how close they’d been in Neverland, but it feels more intimate than any touch until now. “But your future–” She can’t go on, not without weeping in front of Henry, and she has to be– she has to  _ seem  _ strong, at least.  _ For them.  _ Emma looks fragile, about to shatter with another word, and Regina falls silent.

 

Snow takes over, pressing her hands to Emma’s cheeks and kissing her forehead as Emma bows her head. “Henry,” Emma chokes out, and Regina kisses his forehead as well, holds him close as he shakes in her arms, clinging to her with all his might. 

 

It takes all she has to give him a gentle push to Emma, and he wraps his arms around Emma just as tightly, moving from one mother to the other in search of comfort. He’s so young today. They’re both so young, and Regina does her best to stay upright. 

 

They walk to the car together, Emma’s arm wrapped around Henry and Henry’s arm around Emma’s arm, and they don’t turn back until Henry’s tucked into the passenger seat and the curse is looming behind them. Emma closes the passenger door and spins around, running back to Regina and skidding to a halt in front of her. “Regina–” 

 

“You have to go,” Regina says faintly. “Emma–” 

 

“Soulmates, right?” Emma says urgently, her eyes wild with desperation, and neither of them pay much mind to Snow’s quiet gasp. “Soulmates means we have to meet again.” Her hands are on Regina’s face, thumbs stroking her lips and fingers shaking. “We have to.” 

 

And they’re moments from a curse and from Emma forgetting all of this, and if Emma doesn’t forgive her next lie, she won’t have much time to hate her for it. “Soulmates,” Regina says, nodding as though she believes it, and Emma wraps her arms around Regina and holds her as tightly as she had Henry. 

 

Regina lets her hands settle on Emma’s back as Emma’s hand shifts, sneaking up between them to touch Regina’s coat over her mark, and then they’re out of time and Emma has to run again, back to the car as Regina begins the counter-curse.

 

And no, soulmates guarantee nothing, and she gives Emma a thousand memories, finishing off with a single image– Emma in a brightly lit room, a technician bent over her hip.

 

_ “You sure this is what you want, Ms. Swan? It can’t be put back in once it’s gone. I have clients back here all the time, begging me to fix it, but this is a done deal.”  _

 

_ Emma, her teeth worrying at her lip. “I’m sure,” she says, and barks out a laugh. “Screw destiny, right? I don’t need a soulmate.” _

  
_ And the tattoo artist prepares the laser and traces it carefully on Emma’s hip, erasing the webbed sunburst from her skin as easily as magic.  _


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I knowww, I'm late. I got this out as quickly as possible but it wound up being 14k??? wtf. Anyway!! Remember how I said I was ditching plot for pining? Welcome to a 3b without any external conflicts, in which Regina wears a lot of button-down shirts for SOME REASON and Emma just really wants to go home (and unbutton those shirts). Thanks for sticking with me through this, ily all, hope you enjoy the rest!!

It’s a bright Tuesday morning and Emma’s working from home, a runner handed over to the cops last night and just a pile of paperwork to take care of today. Henry is up early, watering the plants while Emma makes breakfast, and mornings like these are the kind that Emma has learned to treasure. For all their years of happy memories together, it’s this first year in New York that feels freshest, bright and vibrant in a way that they’d never been before.

 

She’s still smiling when the doorbell rings, her eyebrow quirking as she ducks into the front hall to see who’s coming by this early. Maybe one of Henry’s friends, looking to join them on the way to school. Emma hasn’t made many friends in New York, but she’s always been a bit of a loner, and their apartment tends to center around Henry’s social life.

 

She pulls open the door, and it’s definitely  _ not  _ one of Henry’s friends. “Hi,” she says dumbly. “Were you looking for the Wongs next door?” 

 

The woman stares at her. She isn’t smiling, but her eyes are fixed on Emma’s face, drinking it in with a hunger that makes Emma shift uncomfortably, clearing her throat. “Excuse me,” she says stiffly.

 

“No,” the woman says, blinking once and shaking her head as though to dismiss whatever thoughts she’d been lost to. “I mean, no, I’m not looking for the Wongs next door, Emma.” Emma can feel her muscles tensing at the familiarity of her name at this woman’s lips. “My name is Regina Mills,” the woman says, and she reaches for her blouse, tugging at the spot where it’s open. “I’m your soulmate.” 

 

Emma laughs automatically. “What is this, a late-night pick-up at a bar? I don’t have a soulmate.” She’s been more content for it, though she isn’t entirely sure that she wouldn’t have played along if this woman  _ had  _ tried to pick her up at a bar.

 

Though that stray thought becomes quickly replaced with dawning horror as the woman begins to unbutton her blouse. “Whoa, hey, what are you doing?” Henry is in the house, just a dozen feet away from the hallway, and someone’s sent…a stripper? A gorgeous one, yes, but– Emma’s eyes widen in alarm. “Stop that,” she hisses, and the woman placidly finishes unbuttoning the first four buttons of her blouse and parts them.

 

There’s a webbed sunburst just below the woman’s bra, unmistakable, and Emma gapes at it. She hasn’t had a mark in over a year, but she knows  _ that  _ one as well as she knows herself, and the woman–  _ Regina _ , she’d said– leans against the doorway, buttoning her shirt up again and waiting expectantly. 

 

“I don’t have a soulmate,” Emma says again, this time a bit more weakly. 

 

Regina nods. “I know you had your mark removed.” Her eyes flicker to Emma’s left hip for a moment, meaningful and pained, and Emma gapes at her. “But I also know there’s a part of you that can’t help but place importance in it. There are…” She looks tired, as though this is the final stop on a long journey, and Emma’s eyes are glued to her, her thoughts racing wildly. “There are things you and Henry don’t remember, Emma.” 

 

Emma scoffs, but it’s without much bite, and her voice is shaky when she says, “Stay the hell away from my son.” Regina closes her eyes, visibly resigned, and Emma swallows. “I mean it,” she says. “I’m…I’m taking him to school, and if you want to come back after…” She bites her lip, unsure why she’s even offering this. “We can talk then.”   

 

Regina touches her shirt over her mark, her eyes so unguarded around Emma that it must be a lie, that she must be some twisted trick, because no one looks so open without there being a secondary motivation. “All right,” she says, and Emma reviews in her head the distance between the front hall and her gun.

 

* * *

 

She keeps it next to her, a casual hand on the coffee table while Regina sits on the opposite couch and doesn’t look at it once. “Talk,” Emma orders, her limbs taut with tension.

 

Regina’s fingers twist together, her eyes fixed on Emma’s face. “Henry’s first steps were at the park, and he fell down after three of them and skinned his knee. You didn’t want him to walk ever again after that, and you carried him for a full day after until you put him down and he didn’t stop.” 

 

Emma’s lips purse together. Regina quirks an eyebrow at her as though she  _ knows _ how on guard Emma is, and she says, “His first day of school was fine. It wasn’t until the second that he wouldn’t let go of you, because he’d finally realized that this wasn’t a one-time thing. You sat outside his classroom and cried and were patronized by an awful class assistant.” Her lip curls as though she’s remembering it, too. 

 

It’s  _ impossible _ , it’s so specific that it’s terrifying, and Emma manages, “How’d you know that?” with as much scorn as she can manage over rising unease.

 

“You told me,” Regina says simply, but there’s a tic in her jaw when she says it, her eyes darting downward in a familiar motion. 

 

It’s nice to have  _ something  _ familiar here today, even if it’s Emma’s skill at detecting deceptions. “You’re lying,” she says, exhaling. It’s the first lie she’s caught from Regina so far.

 

Regina looks almost fond at the accusation, and Emma’s heart skips a beat at the look in her eyes. “Right. Your ‘lie detector’.” She hooks her fingers into air quotes. “Yes, I am. But only because I don’t think you’d believe the truth.” 

 

“The truth that someone sent you to screw me over?” Emma demands, finding her outrage again. “My runners are pretty small time, and none of them can afford the background check and the hired actor, so–” 

 

“Your parents sent me,” Regina says, and Emma lets out a startled, explosive laugh. “I know it sounds…absurd.” She digs into her handbag and returns with a set of little vials, each filled with a clear liquid. “One for you, one for Henry. We had no choice but to give you new memories when you left Storybrooke, but these potions–” 

 

“ _ Potions _ ,” Emma repeats, and she has the wild urge to hunt for the hidden camera, to understand how the  _ fuck  _ this is happening right now. “You’re really not good at this. You’re going to poison me by playing Harry Potter?” 

 

“JK Rowling is a hack,” Regina sniffs, and Emma can hear the irritation in her voice. “This is reality, Emma. Look.” Another dip into her handbag and she’s passing over a brown envelope that Emma takes with bemusement. If this is a con, it’s a  _ weird  _ one. 

 

Her smile fades when she takes out the photos in the envelope. They’re of  _ her _ , moving through an unfamiliar town, talking to people she’s never seen before. Henry is in more than one, looking at least nine or ten, and she doesn’t remember–

 

It’s the sixth photo that has her freeze, because Regina’s in it. She’s scowling at Emma, Emma leaning back with her fingers hooked into her jeans and a bemused expression on her face, and Henry is tucked under Regina’s arm. “What the  _ hell _ ,” Emma says, angry. She might not recognize the photos, but she knows these angles. “I’ve taken pictures like this. These are PI photos. You had someone following me?” It makes no sense. “And…photoshopping me into pictures? You keep Henry out of this.”  

 

“These aren’t photoshopped,” Regina says, and she’s beginning to sound exasperated. “This is Storybrooke. Your home, before you lost your memories. Where your family is. Where you belong.” 

 

The most frightening part of this is how certain Regina sounds about all of this, how she isn’t setting off Emma’s lie detector anymore and how she looks at Emma as though she really is just a…woman beseeching her soulmate to come home. Regina  _ believes _ the nonsense she’s spouting, and Emma can feel a twinge of doubt at Regina’s pleading that has her irritable and on edge. “No,” she says sharply. “I belong  _ here _ , with my son and my life. I don’t know what kind of practical joke this is and who sent you, but I’m happy here. I’ve never been happier in my  _ life _ , and I’m not so desperate anymore that I might follow anyone who promises me– who promises me–” 

 

She can’t finish the sentence because it’s  _ ridiculous _ , a fairytale,  _ parents  _ and a  _ soulmate  _ who holds onto Henry like he’s a part of a family. She doesn’t understand what motivations there are in deceiving her today but she doesn’t need any of this. She’s  _ content _ . She’s happy. 

 

And Regina is sobered at the insistence. “I see,” she says, her voice muted. “I’m…I’m glad you are.” She sits in silence for a few minutes, Emma on edge waiting for the next onslaught and Regina volunteering nothing. Her brow is furrowed, and when it finally smoothes out, she stands. “I’ll go, then.” 

 

“What?” Emma says, baffled. “That’s it? You’re giving up?” 

 

Regina presses something into her hand, and her eyes are soft and a little challenging. “I’m leaving it to you to decide,” she says, and Emma opens her hand and finds a vial in her palm and a business card folded below it.  _ Regina Mills. Mayor. Storybrooke, Maine. _ “Goodbye, Emma.” 

 

She considers getting it analyzed at some lab, to understand what it is that she’s been handed. She uncorks it once Regina’s left, sniffs the odorless liquid and corks it again. It’s all a  _ lie _ , it has to be.

 

And if it isn’t?

 

She uncorks the vial again, this time dipping her finger into the vial and pressing the liquid to her lips, waiting for the telltale tingle of poison or the taste of a drug. Instead, there’s a moment of nothing and  _ then _ – 

 

–A flash of Henry, looking up at her earnestly. A woman she’s never seen before, arms wrapped around her.  _ Neal _ , fucking Neal, staring at her in shock on a Manhattan sidewalk. Henry in a hospital bed. A man– her father?– kissing her forehead. Regina naked in the woods, Emma’s lips pressed to her soulmate mark, both of them trembling and tangled together–

 

She downs the whole potion, feels her world unmake itself in a single instant, and then calls Regina’s cell number. “Hi,” she says hoarsely.

 

There’s a long, relieved exhale, and then a knock at the door. “Emma,” Regina says when she opens it, and they stand opposite each other in silence, frozen on either side of the door as they take each other in.

 

* * *

 

“The fabric of time and space was destroyed by the curse and the countercurse,” Regina explains from the backseat. She’s curled into Henry’s side while Emma drives, a counterpoint to the position they’d been in before Pan’s curse had hit. Henry has barely stopped talking since he’d taken his potion, as exuberant as he might’ve been coming back from summer camp instead of a year in a different life. “We had no choice but to come back here, and as soon as we found a way to cast the curse again, we were able to take everyone in the Enchanted Forest and run.” She doesn’t look very unhappy at that development.

 

“And then you found us,” Henry says, beaming at her, and she beams back. 

 

“Snow is working with several of the leaders of the Enchanted Forest factions to resettle everyone satisfactorily,” Regina says. “I came straight here with both potions.” 

 

“Were you really just going to give up?” It’s the first thing Emma’s said since they started the drive back to Storybrooke. She swallows and tries again, less accusatory. “Just…leave it in my hands to take the potion?” 

 

Regina rolls her eyes. “I know you, Emma. You wouldn’t make it more than a day without doing something stupidly rash, like drinking a mysterious drink from an unreliable stranger.” She quirks a grin, lighter than any Emma’s ever seen from her. 

 

Emma says, a bit too fondly, “Oh, shut up.” 

 

There’s a pit in her stomach that feels as though it’s slowly growing, hollowing her out as she gets closer and closer to Storybrooke.  _ Home _ . Home, where she’d been absolutely miserable before Neverland.

 

She pastes a smile on her face and glances at herself in the rearview mirror. It’s a grotesque, false smile, and it only softens into something real when she looks at Henry and Regina instead. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay, and she’s going to be home-that-isn’t, and it’s going to be  _ fine _ .

 

It stops being fine the moment they step out of the car at the sheriff’s station in Storybrooke and Mary Margaret comes rushing to her. “Emma!” Her arms are around Emma and Emma can’t  _ breathe _ , can’t think of anything other than Mary Margaret’s very pregnant stomach bumping against her as she hugs her. “Oh,  _ Emma _ . Henry!” Henry joins the group hug, Regina leaning against the car and watching them with sharp eyes.

 

“I wanted to warn you,” she murmurs when Emma extricates herself, and even Regina is suddenly no longer a comfort. “But not around Henry. I’m sorry.” 

 

“Sorry that you can’t separate this one from my parents for thirty years?” Emma snaps, off-balance and overly defensive, and Regina’s lips purse together as she shifts away from Emma. Emma squeezes her eyes shut, takes a deep breath. “I didn’t mean that.” 

 

Regina opens her mouth to reply, but she’s distracted a moment later by a stranger who emerges from the station, his eyes lighting up when he catches sight of Regina. “Ah, you’re back!” There’s a genuine smile born of familiarity on his face, one that Regina doesn’t return. Emma dislikes him immediately. “And this must be your son,” he says, turning to Henry as though he  _ knows _ – as though Regina’s  _ spoken  _ to him about Henry– and Emma hates him. 

 

Finally, Regina smiles, but it’s at Henry with the softness that tends to turn Emma into a pile of goo. “This is Henry,” she says, and Henry blinks up at Regina, curious. Regina wraps an arm around his shoulders. “Henry, this is Robin Hood. He’s been helping some of the new additions to Storybrooke to get settled in.” 

 

Henry’s eyes round, lit up with the excitement that accompanies every new fairytale discovery. “ _ Awesome _ ,” he says, and the pit in Emma’s stomach is only half about the man still smiling at Regina and Henry.

 

This is where Henry belongs, uncategorically. It’s only Emma who is adrift here.

 

She ducks away from the group as quickly as she can, making excuses about familiarizing herself with the station again, and she slips into her familiar seat at the familiar desk and the familiar room and drops her head onto a stack of papers.  _ Home _ . Before Neverland, it had been a widening chasm that she’d been desperate to escape. After Neverland, it had begun again, but she’d been pulled away before she could sink again.

 

And now she’s back, and there are no enemies to fight and no distractions to be had. Only her parents, who love her and are hard at work replacing her. Only Regina, who hasn’t been  _ safe _ since Emma had torn off her shirt in Neverland.

 

She feels a shiver even now at the thought of it, though she can’t name it even now– if it’s desire or revulsion or desperation to be  _ back there  _ now, to be safe in Regina’s arms and ready, this time, to pretend that she’d seen nothing. 

 

But she’d seen her mark. She’d seen her one act of defiance made into a mockery, into a reminder of her own failures, and she rubs her hip absentmindedly and wishes yet again that Regina hadn’t been her soulmate. 

 

“I’ve been familiarizing myself with the work you do,” offers a voice from the doorway. It’s Robin Hood, who’s somehow torn himself away from Henry’s admiring looks to intrude on Emma’s quiet time. “I can organize the most pressing paperwork for you if you want to go back out to your family.” There’s something in his tone that’s just a hint inquisitive, enough for Emma’s temper to flare.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demands curtly.

 

Robin Hood doesn’t flinch at her tone. “I know they’ve all been missing you quite desperately.” 

 

“You spend a lot of time with my family in the Enchanted Forest?” Emma pushes, and Robin inclines his head.

 

“Perhaps a bit with your parents. With Regina,” he adds swiftly, and Emma stares at him. “I have a son, too. I think it may have prompted her to reveal a bit more than she’d intended.” He smiles to himself. “She was very clear about her desire to get rid of me after that. And she talked about you.” 

 

Now the inquisitiveness is back. “I’d thought...you two were involved.” Emma freezes. “If you’d like to go back out there and catch up with her–” 

 

“Sorry to disappoint,” Emma says swiftly, her jaw clenching. “We’re not…you’re mistaken about our relationship. Or lack thereof. We don’t have a–” She’s stumbling over her words, her cheeks flaming and her heart thumping wildly in her chest. “There’s nothing there,” she lies, and she wants to be back in New York, back in the the Bug, anywhere but in this station with this man who asks too many questions.

 

He says, “Well, to be quite honest, I can’t say I’m  _ disappointed _ ,” and  _ no _ , this is just about where she wants to be, her hands around his neck and her eyes dark with murder and–

 

He winks at her and steps back out of the station, and she curls her knees below her on her chair and buries her head in her hands.

 

* * *

 

Mary Margaret has a dozen questions for her, each more difficult than the last.

 

_ Do you remember having this many mosquito bites when you were pregnant?  _ “No, Mary Margaret, I was in prison.” 

 

_ Is formula supplementation really a good idea?  _ “I don’t know, Mary Margaret, I put Henry up for adoption.”

 

_ Don’t you have memories of raising Henry now?  _ “Not really, they’re pretty fuzzy. Why don’t you just ask Regina these questions?” Mary Margaret looks offended at the terseness in her voice, and Emma swallows and tries to sound less irritable at the next response.

 

She’s almost relieved that Mary Margaret asks no questions about New York or what it had been like. Of course, as far as anyone’s concerned, it had just been a long vacation away for Emma and Henry. She’d rather be reminded a thousand times of her own failings in being mother and daughter than she would of the dreamland where she hadn’t been a failure. 

 

Henry makes faces whenever Mary Margaret talks about her bodily functions and says, more than once, “Can we go back home now?”  _ Home  _ for Henry means Mifflin Street, means Regina’s mansion and the place he’d grown up. Emma lingers in the loft still, waiting for questions that are  _ right  _ and coming up blank.

 

Defeated by the time dinner is over, she tucks an arm around Henry and they walk to the Bug together. “You do have a trundle bed upstairs with me,” she reminds him, and he makes a face.

 

“I’m really getting too old to share a room with my mom,” he points out. “And what about the baby?” His eyes light up. “I was looking at apartment listings at Granny’s and I saw a few near Mom’s house that would be perfect for us. How do you feel about upstairs porches?” 

 

“I…” She’s taken aback, stumbling over her words. “I don’t know, Henry. What about New York?” 

 

Henry stares at her, uncomprehending. “Weren’t we renting? We don’t need to sell the apartment or anything, do we?” He looks concerned, and she hurries to reassure him.

 

“No, of course not. I don’t know what I was thinking.” There’s a bitter wind as they emerge from the car, stinging at her eyes and drawing out moisture where she’d been so good at tamping it down. 

 

And then Regina’s door is thrown open– like she’s been hovering by the windows, waiting for them– and Henry is bounding into her arms, Regina holding him tightly as Emma blinks hot wetness from her eyes and lingers at the end of the walk. “Emma,” Regina calls, and Emma doesn’t expect her voice to be so kind when they’d been so tense earlier. Kind, like Emma’s  _ wanted _ in the house with her son and her former soulmate. 

 

She shakes her head and stumbles back, ducking into the Bug and driving down the road until she sees him. Robin Hood is walking down Mifflin with what must be a couple of his Merry Men, and they stop in front of Regina’s door and are invited inside as well.

 

Emma thinks of  _ to be quite honest, I can’t say I’m disappointed _ , and her hands tighten and tighten on the steering wheel until her palms are red and patterned from the pressure. 

 

* * *

 

She isn’t very good at lessening the tension around them, is the point. She’s sharp with Regina and Regina is sharper back as time passes, and any time they begin a conversation that is anything more than casual, Emma finds a way to fuck it up. 

 

She thinks too often of Regina in Neverland, that tearful  _ I love you  _ with her tattoo still visible against her skin. Regina, who’d loved her because Emma’s her  _ soulmate  _ and there had been no other choice. Emma resents that awful love, the implication of it being  _ real  _ when it’s nothing more than ink on skin, and Emma craves it more than anything.

 

Emma’s eyes flicker to Regina’s chest enough that even Mary Margaret is starting to look knowingly at her. There’s still a horrible feeling of  _ hers  _ even when they can’t get along, and at least in Emma’s case– at least she’d wanted Regina to be hers before that damned tattoo. She’d gotten rid of her own because she thought she’d be  _ free _ , but what she wants when she’s free winds up being exactly what she’d wanted when she’d been been chained.

 

But she can’t lose Regina, and there’s something about Robin Hood in particular that makes that threat seem more and more dire. Maybe it’s the blatant interest he has in Regina, interest that Regina doesn’t seem to be reacting to at all– let alone rejecting. Maybe it’s the son he brings to Town Hall who  _ adores  _ Regina, and who Regina adores in return. Maybe it’s the way he grins at Emma sometimes as though they share a secret.

 

She’s nauseous and angry and sometimes it’s enough to forget that she and Regina aren’t getting along these days. “Magic lessons,” she says suddenly one afternoon, and everyone in the room looks curiously at her. “I think I should be learning more magic. I know the last time didn’t end so well–” 

 

“I remember how it ended,” Regina says, and there’s a hint of amusement in her voice. Emma knows she isn’t thinking of Emma calling her a monster but of the moment after when they’d been kissing desperately, lost in each other in the Neverland forest. She flushes. Regina says, “Meet me in an hour in my vault,” and Emma shivers despite herself, Regina’s eyes still glittering as she ducks out of the room.

 

God, she still wants to kiss her.

 

But she doesn’t. She touches enough in the vault to annoy Regina and makes only one snide comment that has Regina laughing instead of shooting another one back at her, and she endures Regina’s gentle mockery without being huffy about it. It’s going well, except for the magic part. “How did Gold teach you?” Emma wonders after she fails to read another book in Elvish. 

 

“You don’t want to learn magic the way I did,” Regina says grimly, and maybe it’s just the dark solitude of the vault, but her hand moves up to touch Emma’s cheek like she’s  _ precious _ and Emma can’t breathe. “I don’t want to teach you like that. You’re…”

 

“I’m not going to learn if you don’t throw me into the deep end of the pool sometime,” Emma protests halfheartedly, her mind on Regina’s touch instead of her words. “Try me. I can handle it.” 

 

“Of course you can,” Regina sighs, and she waves a hand and Emma is, very suddenly, suspended on a wobbling rope bridge above an enormous chasm.

 

“What the hell?” She can see Regina standing on firm land on one end of the rope bridge, an eyebrow raised in challenge, and her resolve firms. “Do your worst,” she calls out challengingly, and Regina grins at her.

 

“I don’t think you can handle my worst,” she says, which is  _ definitely  _ flirting and nearly makes Emma fall off the bridge.  _ No _ . She nearly falls off the bridge because Regina is methodically removing slat after slat from the bridge, letting them fall into the chasm. “Save yourself!” Regina calls out. “Every time you’ve used your power, it’s been instinctive. Stop me now before the bridge is gone!” 

 

“I changed my mind!” Emma says frantically, her feet scrabbling for purchase as her hands wrap around the rope of the bridge. “I’ll go back to the books, I swear. Stop this!” 

 

Another slat falls, and Emma falls with it, hanging on to the bridge for dear life. It only seems to make Regina even more determined. “It’s inside you, Emma. Reach into your gut and find your magic. Save the bridge. Save yourself!” She holds up a finger as Emma opens her mouth. “And do  _ not  _ make a comment you’ll regret right now–” 

 

“I’m really a little too busy for innuendo!” Emma yelps, and the rope snaps. 

 

She’s flying through the air in an instant, that metaphorical chasm suddenly terrifyingly real. She’s screaming, flailing as she struggles for her magic and fails, and a tiny voice inside her wonders  _ what’s the point _ ? 

 

In a single instant, she looks up at Regina, a tiny figure at the top of the crevice, and slats rise up around her, beneath her, slowing her descent until it’s an ascent, and she can feel the magic that’s burst from her body like a tangible thing. She focuses on controlling it in an attempt to ignore the voice in her head, focuses on recreating enough of the bridge and lifting it to Regina, and she rides it back to her wide-eyed teacher with shaky movements.

 

Regina is openmouthed, reaching for her in an instant, and Emma stumbles off her bridge and into Regina’s arms. “Oh, my god,” she murmurs, laughing helplessly, and Regina doesn’t laugh with her. “Well, it worked. I may need a slightly longer drop next time.” 

 

“We’re never doing that again,” Regina whispers, and she sounds...hollow, guilty, terrified.

 

Emma takes a step back, detangling herself from Regina’s arms. “It’s fine. You were right.” She grins, playful. “Madam Mayor, don’t tell me you  _ care _ .” 

 

“I tried to prick myself with a sleeping curse after Pan’s curse,” Regina says flatly, and Emma stares at her. “And you and Henry were safe then. Oh, are we still pretending that nothing after my mother’s death ever happened?” she says at Emma’s gaping stare, and waves her hands together, yanking them back into the vault without warning.

 

She’s halfway up the stairs to outside when Emma finally finds her voice. “Regina,” she says, and Regina freezes. “I didn’t…I’m not  _ pretending _ ,” she says helplessly. “I’m just bad at this. Us. Whatever  _ us  _ means.” She rubs the smooth, unmarred skin of her hip again. “I know I’ve been kind of a dick to you lately.” 

 

“Well,” Regina says grudgingly. “It’s not as though you weren’t provoked.” But her voice is gentle, the voice she’d once reserved for moments when the two of them had been alone. “I know you want to leave,” she says quietly. “I can see it in your eyes every time you see Henry fitting back in so seamlessly. I see it every time Snow talks about the future.” 

 

“Regina,” Emma says, her voice choked, because of course Regina’s seen more than she’s let on. They’ve always known each other too well. 

 

“I promise you, they’re not going to name the baby Emma,” Regina says, the wry deprecation pointed at Snow White in that way that only Regina does, and Emma wants to sob. “I know it’s tempting to…to run away again–” 

 

She’s interrupted by a voice above the stairs, a face moving in front of the opening and casting them in darkness again. “Regina?” It’s Robin Hood.  _ Fuck _ , of course it is, because they can’t have anything anymore. “I’m sorry to bother you during your...magic, but just after you left–” He shifts a bit, enough so he can reach out and pull Regina from the stairs up onto level ground.

 

The sun from outside the mausoleum hits his wrist in just the right way, and from the bottom of the steps, Emma sees what it is that has Regina staring at him with rising horror. 

 

“Snow has gone into labor,” Robin explains, and that bombshell takes an extra moment to hit as they both stare at the lion tattoo, proudly displayed on his wrist where his shirt has ridden up.

 

* * *

 

“I noticed your tattoo earlier,” Emma says, pacing back and forth in the waiting room while Regina hovers behind her. Her hand is tight on Henry’s shoulder, her lips pressed together and nearly white from the force of it. “That a soulmate tat?” 

 

Robin shakes his head. “It’s a symbol of loyalty to King Richard the Lionhearted,” he explains.

 

“So it’s pretty popular, huh? There are loads of guys out there with lion tattoos on their arms?” It’s easier to focus on this than on the  _ baby _ , than on her parents in the next room as they begin their first real foray into parenthood.

 

Robin shakes his head again. “I’ve never seen another so low down. They’re usually around here.” He pats his upper arm. Regina sags, sitting down in a chair at last. 

 

Emma says, “Well. Okay, then,” and she sits down across the room from Regina, her hands folded on her lap. “Cool. You frequent a lot of taverns in the Enchanted Forest?” 

 

“Emma,” Regina says tightly, and Emma stands again and flees from the room, coming face-to-face with her father. 

 

“It’s a boy,” he says, beaming, and she follows him into the room without another word.

 

It’s easy to shut out the world now, when there’s a baby in her arms and it’s real. He’s the first baby she’s ever really held, and he’s her parents’ do-over, and  _ god _ , she just wants to run away. But she doesn’t, not yet, not when Regina is there, too, her face clear of anything but peaceful joy when she sees the baby. She doesn’t when Henry’s sitting beside her next to the hospital bed, his head on her shoulder a reminder of what it is she’s staying for. She doesn’t when she’s bringing him back to Regina’s again at the end of the day, when they push the door open because there’s no answer, and she finds Regina sitting in the dark in the study.

 

“Emma,” she says, her eyes gleaming in the dim light from the windows. “Is Henry all right?” 

 

“He’s exhausted. He’ll be asleep by the time you make it upstairs,” Emma assures her, and her eyes are only on Regina’s unbuttoned shirt, on the flash of inked skin visible when she shifts. “I should–”

 

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Regina whispers, and Emma falls silent, ducks into the room and closes the door with a click. “Tink was  _ wrong _ . You’ve seen my mark. You know that it matched yours.” 

 

“Maybe they didn’t–” Emma takes a deep breath, and it’s everything she’s wanted for over a year but it tastes sour in her mouth. “Maybe they weren’t a perfect match, I don’t know. I can’t remember mine anymore.” 

 

“You can’t remember?” Regina says dubiously, and Emma wonders if her tattoo is burned into Regina’s mind like Regina’s is into Emma’s. 

 

She blinks back tears, too many tears after too long a day, and manages, “All I remember is yours and how it–” She’s reaching for Regina without another word, brushing aside her open blouse to stroke the tattoo beneath it, and Regina lets out a shuddering moan. Her eyes drift closed as Emma touches the tattoo, feels Regina’s body react to her every movement against it. It’s more sensitive than any tattoo she’s ever touched– more sensitive to  _ Emma _ , and Emma feels the tears streaming from her eyes only when Regina reaches out to brush them away.

 

“I thought– I thought this was what you wanted,” Regina murmurs, quivering under Emma’s touch. “I thought you hated that we were soulmates.” 

 

“I do,” Emma says hopelessly. “I do, I do–” She presses her lips to Regina’s tattoo and Regina’s hips jerk up, her legs wrapping around Emma’s waist as she shakes and shakes. Emma replaces her lips with her hand, resting against the tattoo as she lifts her face to kiss Regina, and Regina coils a hand in the hair at the nape of Emma’s neck.  _ I do  _ becomes  _ I want  _ and there’s no way to finish that sentence, no way to do anything more than hold onto Regina and try to explain it with the tears still flowing down her cheeks and the kisses that she can’t stop pressing to her lips.

 

And then Regina’s lips are gone, and there are only eyes that are soft and regretful as she sucks in a breath and removes Emma’s hand from her skin. “No,” she breathes, and Emma stares at her in desolation. “I won’t…This is just you running again, isn’t it?” 

 

Heartbreak melds swiftly with anger, with injured pride and disbelief that favors lashing out to weeping. “Running again,” Emma repeats incredulously, because how  _ dare  _ she. How dare she imply that Emma would only kiss her to escape from– “Don’t tell me,” she says bitterly. “This is you  _ suddenly discovering  _ that you’re actually in love with your  _ real  _ soulmate.” 

 

Regina’s jaw moves beneath her skin. “I’m not the one who changes her mind on a whim because of her soulmate,” she shoots back. “Why is it that suddenly  _ now  _ you want to fuck me? You say you want to fight destiny, but you’re just interested in running the opposite way.” She shoves Emma back, one hand holding her shirt closed. “You don’t care which way that is.” 

 

“Fuck you,” Emma says, breathing heavily. “Fuck you. I thought you got it.” 

 

Regina shakes her head. “You don’t even  _ get it _ ,” she says, bitterly mocking. “You don’t know what you want. You’d rather believe in a fraud than you would acknowledge that it doesn’t  _ matter _ . Isn’t that what your New York dream is?” 

 

It’s over a year of animosity restrained, Regina’s resentment finally unleashed with the threat of Emma running, and– “You’re wrong,” Emma says, straightening. “You’re wrong about this. I always knew what I wanted.” She’d done what she’d done in spite of it, and if Regina doesn’t know  _ that _ , then…

 

She turns on her heel, yanking open the study door and barely noticing Henry on the other side of it, gaping at her. “Enjoy your new soulmate,” she bites out, stalking toward the door. “I know  _ he _ will.”

 

Regina says, “Go to hell,” and Emma storms out the front door, slamming it behind her.

 

* * *

 

She hates them all sometimes, when loving hurts too much. Her parents, Regina…never Henry, but sometimes the tiny baby gurgling in her mother’s arms, and then she’s so ashamed that she winds up stumbling down to the Rabbit Hole, drinking herself numb and cursing her own stupidity for not bringing the Bug with her so she can drive away from this all. 

 

It doesn’t work, and she doesn’t leave, though she drives to the town line sober more than once. She doesn’t know why. She’s miserable in a way that’s beginning to feel like a way of life, and there are few moments of respite.

 

Even Henry is no longer a sanctuary, a reminder of a better time. He trails after her in Granny’s and the station as though he’s still ten and skipping school to fight the curse, always with the same questions. “It’s none of your business,” she reminds him for the fiftieth time. “Talk to your other mom about this.” 

 

“She tells me to talk to you,” Henry says, rolling his eyes. “And neither of you are talking to each other, so…” He stares up at her. “ _ Soulmates _ ?” 

 

Emma heaves a sigh. “I know it makes no sense. It wasn’t real, anyway.” 

 

“Oh, I think it makes a lot of sense,” Henry says thoughtfully, and Emma nudges him and says, “Shouldn’t you be in school, kid?” 

 

“It’s five pm. And Grandma thinks I should skip a grade, anyway, because the curriculum got so screwed up by the curse.” 

 

“Talk to your mom about it,” Emma says automatically, and Henry heaves a sigh and slinks off to Granny’s, ostensibly to meet up with Regina. 

 

She can’t leave him behind, and he won’t come with her. She writes a goodbye letter that night that doesn’t say much at all beyond  _ I love you  _ and  _ I’ll be back _ , and she leaves it taped to Regina’s front door and hopes that Henry will get it after she drives out of town. She makes it to the town line and then parks, her forehead resting against the steering wheel as she struggles to figure out what comes next. 

 

She goes back. The letter is still untouched on Regina’s door, and she folds it carefully and tucks it into her glove compartment. She’s about to start the car and head back to the loft when the front door opens, Regina framed in it and looking very tired.

 

It’s the first time she’s seen her in the days since their fight, and Emma finds every last bit of hate and outrage seeping away with only this small glimpse, with Regina in a cardigan that looks more for comfort than intimidation, with Regina leaning against the doorframe as though she can’t quite stand tall in it anymore. Emma raises an unsteady hand in greeting and Regina shakes her head, vanishing back into her house.

 

But by the next afternoon, she’s finally accepting Mary Margaret’s invitations again, and she’s on the couch in the apartment when Emma gets home from work. The baby is in her arms, and Emma freezes at the sight of them together, Regina’s eyes soft as she coos to her charge. “You’re going to spend the next twenty years tormenting Snow White, aren’t you? Yes, you are. Yes, you are!” The baby gurgles and Mary Margaret looks at both of them with marked fondness, her hand still resting on the baby from her seat beside them. 

 

Emma wonders if Regina had held Henry in the same way, curled around him as though he’s the center of her universe. Of course she had. Of course she’d– 

 

For a moment, she thinks of Regina with another child in her arms, another adopted baby to gift a home to, and then she thinks about soulmates and lion tattoos and Robin Hood’s overly adorable little son and she’s nauseous. “Emma?” Mary Margaret says, looking up at her in concern. Regina’s back stiffens and she doesn’t turn. “You look a little green.” 

 

“Just a long day,” Emma manages, and it’s a relief when Henry and David burst into the house a few minutes later. 

 

David cooks dinner while Regina reluctantly passes the baby to his mother, and Henry scoots up next to Regina and says, “Does he have a soulmate mark yet?” 

 

“Why the sudden interest in soulmate marks, Henry?” Mary Margaret asks. “You’ve been talking about little else for days.” 

 

“I don’t know.” Henry pokes his upper arm, where Emma has seen his own mark before. “Just curious. Have you ever met anyone who didn’t fall in love with their soulmate?” 

 

“I’m sure I have,” Mary Margaret says, rocking the baby on her lap. Emma watches her fixedly, feeling Regina’s eyes on her as she does. “It’s a very personal topic, though. I don’t usually go around asking every couple about their marks.” She says it ruefully, an apology for that fiasco with Neal last year. Emma winces. Mary Margaret had been standing closest to her and Regina at the town line when Emma had had her outburst, but if she knows what Emma had said, she hasn’t mentioned it. “Your grandfather and I didn’t even know we were soulmates until after our engagement.” 

 

“Really?” Henry asks, wide-eyed.

 

Mary Margaret laughs. “Well, I wasn’t going to  _ ask _ , was I? I always thought...when I met the right person, I’d know.” She looks up at David, affection suffusing her face, and Emma envies them with all she is. “And I did.” 

 

“Is it always like that?” Henry wants to know, and he glances between Regina and Emma with furrowed brow. 

 

Emma sags onto the opposite sofa, pulling her knees up so she can rest her chin on them. When she sneaks a glance back at Henry, it stutters and stops on Regina instead.

 

Mary Margaret says, “Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but I think that the soulmate mark isn’t what creates a connection. It only acknowledges what the soulmates already know.” Regina is still watching Emma, her face unreadable, and Emma swallows and lifts her chin, dry-eyed as she meets her gaze. 

 

* * *

 

They’re barely talking anymore, and Emma misses Regina so much that she can hardly breathe sometimes. She’d felt as though she had purpose before the first curse, when she’d been here and fighting Regina and fighting for Henry. After the first curse had broken, she’d never felt grounded except when she’d been with Regina, fighting or talking or exchanging nervous, longing smiles. 

 

Now, she never feels grounded, and every bit of her wants to float away some days.  _ All  _ days, except the rare moments where Henry is there and Regina is smiling at him and Emma just wants it to  _ last _ , wants to scoop them both up and take them back to New York with her.

 

But Regina isn’t hers. Regina has never been hers, except that split second when they’d thought they’d been each other’s and hadn’t had any choice in it. It would have been so  _ simple  _ without the tattoos, if there hadn’t been a man with a lion on his wrist, if Emma had never seen Regina’s–

 

She tears her eyes away from Regina’s chest before anyone notices she’s staring. They’re at a council meeting, discussing the transition process for the new arrivals, and Regina is presiding with cool distance. “Sheriff,” she says suddenly, and Emma jerks back to the present. “Have you had any trouble with any of the Lost Boys or Merry Men?” 

 

“Just the one,” she says without thinking, and Regina’s eyebrow shoots up. “I mean,  _ no _ . None. They’ve been fine. Model citizens.” Regina gives her a slight nod and rounds on the complainer again, inexhaustible. 

 

Emma slumps in her seat, her eyes returning to where she knows Regina’s tattoo is beneath the no-nonsense blazer she has on today. She’s gone again, lost in thought and longing, and she only comes back to earth again when the room is emptying out and Regina is packing up her files. She looks tired, more worn out than Emma’s seen her in a while, and Emma ventures almost instinctively, “Are you okay?” 

 

Regina stiffens. Emma chews on her lip. “Sorry,” she says, certain that she’s done something wrong in asking.

 

“No,” Regina says quickly, and she offers Emma a wan smile. “It’s…it’s been a long day. Week,” she says wryly.

 

“Year,” Emma suggests half-jokingly, and a dark shadow crosses Regina’s face. 

 

“Year,” she agrees. 

 

Emma looks down, then up again, drawn against her will to gaze at Regina again. “Have you eaten anything today?” she says. She remembers Regina’s fridge last year, all but empty, and Regina getting thinner and thinner. She’d convinced herself on multiple occasions that she’d had to go to Regina’s for dinner just so Regina would eat. (That hadn’t been why she’d gone. She doesn’t think about that now, though.) 

 

Regina has been better-adjusted this time around, much better than Emma herself, but lately there’s been an almost imperceptible change in her pallor, barely noticeable unless you happened to be paying close attention to Regina. Today, though, Regina’s eyes on hers dull and raw, it’s impossible not to say anything. 

 

“I’m fine,” Regina says, and Emma reaches out and grasps her arm. Energy sparks between them like a livewire, and Emma’s hand trembles as she holds onto her, waiting silently. Regina’s head drops, just a bit, and she says reluctantly, “I’ll get a late lunch from Granny’s.” 

 

“Okay,” Emma says, but she doesn’t let go of Regina’s arm, not until Regina pulls away of her own accord. 

 

Emma breathes out, slow and shuddering, and Regina pauses at the door and says, “I could use some company.” 

 

It’s a peace offering after weeks of tension, and Emma needs it as much as she needs the air she breathes. Even friendship, painful as it is. “I promised Leroy I’d let him out of his cell after the meeting,” she says. “Give me five minutes and I’ll meet you there?” 

 

“I’d like that,” Regina says, and  _ fuck _ , Emma isn’t going to last five minutes as Regina’s  _ friend _ when she smiles like that. 

 

She lets Leroy out of his cell in record time, and then spends nearly five minutes staring at herself in the mirror, practicing a casual smile that definitely does  _ not  _ scream  _ All I think about is taking you to the back of this diner and– _

 

She chokes back  _ that  _ thought and fluffs up her hair a little, taking in a breath and heading out of the station toward Granny’s. They can have a perfectly nice meal together without all the pressure of  _ soulmates _ , because if they can’t do that, then, well… 

 

She doesn’t want to think about it. She plants her casual smile on her face and finds Regina, sitting with her back to the window of the store as she speaks to someone Emma can’t see, and Emma hesitates, feeling her eyes soften at the sight of her.  _ Casual _ , she reminds herself.  _ Casual _ .

 

But the casual smile fades away as she takes another step forward and sees exactly who it is with Regina.  _ Of course _ . Robin Hood is perched on the chair opposite Regina, grinning as he gestures about something that makes her smile, and Emma freezes in the doorway. Regina laughs, light as she hasn’t been with Emma in over a year, and Robin leans forward, arms settling on the table as though he intends to stay.

 

The bells on the door ring as the door swings closed behind Emma, and Regina looks up. There’s a flush on her face, an eagerness that  _ Robin Hood  _ must have eked from her, and Emma watches with a stony face as Regina’s lips tighten and she glances back at Robin. Reluctant, Emma’s suddenly sure, to give up time with this man who might be her soulmate. She takes a step back, feeling sick at it. 

 

Of course Regina is reluctant. Regina is the one who’d– who’d told her, of all absurd things, that she’d been in love with Emma in Neverland. Regina values the idea of soulmates and destiny and believes in both, and Emma is just idiot enough to want her when she’s finally found the person she fits with. “Emma,” Regina says, and Robin turns to wink at her as though they share some sort of camaraderie. Emma takes another step back, her hand drifting to the doorknob.

 

“It was nice to see you, Robin,” Regina says cordially, and turns to Emma still with that discomfort on her face. “Emma?”

 

“I…” Emma swallows. “I don’t think lunch is a good idea,” she says. “I’m a little nauseous, somehow.” 

 

“Emma.” Regina rises, concern on her face, and Emma ducks out the door and flees before she can catch her and leave her, again, helpless to Regina’s worry. Robin puts a hand on Regina’s arm and Regina yanks her arm away, but that’s all Emma sees before she’s striding back to the station, hands fisting against the bottom of her jacket.

 

She leaves work early, exhausted from a day that hadn’t been much of a day at all. It’s fine. It’s just...something she has to get used to. She stretches out in her bed in the loft, surrounded by boxes of baby clothes and toys that the baby won’t grow into for a while, and she closes her eyes and wills herself away from Storybrooke, away from every endlessly complicated thing about reality, back to New York.

 

But she can’t separate Regina from them again, somehow, even in her dreams, which are bright in an apartment for three where Henry curls between Regina and her on the couch and Regina walks with Emma through the streets of Manhattan, their joined hands swinging together. She dreams of Regina in her bedroom in New York, lips on hers and hand on a tattoo on her hip that had never been removed, and she cries out Emma’s name again and again until Emma jerks awake, breathing hard.

 

“–Emma–” she hears from downstairs, and she lies flat on her bed, shutting her eyes again. Regina is down there. So is Mary Margaret, rocking the baby as they talk. The baby lets out a fierce cry, and Mary Margaret settles down to feed him before she picks up whatever thread they’d been on before Emma had awakened.

 

“It’s more complicated than that,” Mary Margaret says gently.

 

Emma can hear Regina’s frustrated sigh. “Of course it is. I love him,” she says, and Emma’s blood runs cold. “I can’t even…begin to imagine my life without him. But it’s breaking Emma’s heart.” Emma hears the shifting as Regina stands up again, pacing back and forth. “I can’t do this to Emma anymore.” 

 

“It’s not your fault,” Mary Margaret says gently. 

 

“Maybe not,” Regina says darkly, “But it’s yours.” Emma squeezes her eyes shut tighter, feeling her heart pounding in her ears as she struggles to follow this segue. “It’s up to you to make her feel like she has a place here.” 

 

“She does–”

 

“Does she?” Regina demands, and Mary Margaret falls silent, chastened.

 

Emma can’t listen to this anymore, not when all her worst fears have been confirmed and Regina is still being  _ protective _ ,  _ god _ . Regina loves Robin Hood. Regina can’t imagine her life without Robin Hood. The only thing holding Regina back from her soulmate is Emma’s heartbreak, and Emma can’t–

 

Emma can’t  _ do  _ this, can’t watch Regina in love with someone else. Can’t hurt Regina for being happy, when happiness has been so fleeting for them both. Regina is doing nothing more than looking out for Emma, and Emma has to…

 

Emma has no place here, anyway, and she waits until Mary Margaret and Regina are gone before she staggers down to her car and finds the terrible note she’d written to Henry in the glove compartment.

 

This time, as every time before it, she makes it to the town line with dry eyes and an empty, empty heart.

 

* * *

 

There’s a knock at her window after what must be hours, and she refuses to look up until Regina zaps her through the door and makes her yelp. “What the hell?” she demands, yanking the door open.

 

“I have pretended not to see it enough times, and I’m done. You are not leaving Henry with a  _ letter _ ,” Regina says, her eyes steely, and she snaps a finger and is suddenly sitting beside Emma in the car. “You’re still sober,” she says, examining Emma as though this is a disappointment.

 

“I’d really like not to be,” Emma says honestly.

 

Regina sighs. “Fine. Come with me.” 

 

“What?” 

 

“You’ve been miserable since you got here,” Regina says tiredly. “And no one’s really…done a single thing for  _ you  _ since. I can’t blame you for wanting to leave again.” Emma looks at her in surprise. “So come. You want to drink? Let’s drink.” 

 

“I…” 

 

“If this is about that damned tattoo, I don’t want to hear it,” Regina says, and she sounds so weary that Emma believes it. 

 

_ I love you _ , is what Emma had wanted to say, but she’s glad she hadn’t. Instead, she says, “I want you to have something, too,” meekly. 

 

Regina says, “I have Henry,” as though he’s everything, and he  _ is,  _ but…

 

But.

 

It’s a relief when Regina directs them past her house and to the Rabbit Hole. Emma can’t be alone with Regina again, even if they’re acting as though their last conflict hadn’t existed. There’s too much wanting there, too much desperation that would have ended in only one place. But drinking with her… 

 

God, she’s missed this, missed Regina being the only one who made everything make sense. Before the tattoo, before Neverland, when she’d started sneaking out of the house to spend time with Regina, to remember how to  _ breathe _ , and now she can barely be around Regina anymore but she remembers how to breathe again. 

 

She swallows back shots and Regina downs more vodka than she’d have ever imagined that Regina would drink and Emma says, voice slurred, “I bet  _ he  _ wouldn’t do this with you.” 

 

Regina scoffs at her, still effortlessly disdainful, and says, “He was literally sitting in a tavern when the pixie dust took me there.” Which,  _ fine _ . Less fine is the sharp, “You obsess over him more than I do.” 

 

“Ha!” Emma jabs a finger at her. “So you  _ do  _ obsess over him. Shiny new soulmate,” she says bitterly. 

 

Regina heaves a protracted sigh. “You  _ wanted  _ me to have another soulmate,” she points out.

 

“I didn’t want you to meet him! Ever,” Emma protests, staring glumly at her glass. It’s refilled by a very helpful bartender. “This is all Peter Pan’s fault,” she decides. “Fuck him.” 

 

Regina clinks her glass to Emma’s. “I’ll drink to that.” 

 

Somehow, when the half-hearted attempt at late-night music comes on, they’re dancing together, swaying in front of the bar with Emma’s hand back on Regina’s clothes over her tattoo. Regina is shivering, though Emma doesn’t know if it’s from the touch or from the amount of alcohol she’s consumed, and she tucks her chin onto Emma’s shoulder and glares at anyone who dares glance at the very wasted mayor and sheriff as they dance. 

 

Emma thinks  _ I love you _ again, and she is careful again not to say it. It’s the only thing she’s careful not to say. “He isn’t even  _ pretty _ ,” she grumbles into Regina’s ear. “You’d think that your one true soulmate would be a lot prettier than that.” 

 

“You would,” Regina says agreeably, and it’s the first time Emma has noticed that Regina isn’t actually all that drunk. 

 

It’s infuriating, really, another moment where Regina seems to have her life together while Emma is struggling every second of the way. “I bet he couldn’t do what I did to you,” she says, her words slurring together as her finger digs into her spot over Regina’s tattoo. “He couldn’t make you feel the way I did with my hand on your mark and my tongue in your–” 

 

Regina says, her voice strained, “Maybe it’s time I took you home.” 

 

“I don’t have a home,” Emma says dismissively. “I have a room packed with baby clothes.” She touches Regina’s mark again, watching as a tremor grips her body. “Could he make you tremble like this?” she breathes, awed at her own presumption. “Could he make you  _ want _ –” 

 

Regina’s breath hitches and Emma’s free hand slides under her dress, tugging it up just a hair less than appropriate. “Remember when I made you scream,” she whispers, and Regina lifts her head so dark, dark eyes are looking directly into Emma’s. Emma can feel her breath on her lips, and she’s still staring at Regina when the room around them fades into purple mist and they’re suddenly in Regina’s guest room.

 

Emma licks her lips and can’t remember a single reason why she hadn’t wanted to be in this house tonight. “I could do it again. I’m...at least fifteen percent sober and I could still make it as good as it was in Neverland. If I could–” She rubs her thumb against Regina’s tattoo over her dress. Regina quivers, pushing her gently down onto the bed. “I could make you come apart with a touch,” Emma says breathlessly, reaching up for Regina.

 

“You’re maybe five percent sober,” Regina corrects her, a bit shakily, but she holds her hand over Emma’s for a moment before she closes hers around it and pulls it away. She tugs at Emma’s shirt and slides her jeans off and Emma reaches for her again, waits with anticipation for Regina’s touch.

 

Her hand slides against Emma’s hip where her tattoo had been and Emma can still feel it, if she strains, can sense the way her nerve endings all seem alive and needy in that place. “Give me your hands,” Regina murmurs, and Emma offers them obligingly–

 

–Only to have a flannel pajama shirt slipped onto her arms and over her head. “Hey,” she says weakly, and Regina waves a hand, magically tugs the blanket out from under her like a magic carpet and settles it over her body. “I had...I had plans.” 

 

“Shh,” Regina says soothingly, and she’s smiling down at Emma with inexplicable fondness for the first time since Emma had first gotten back to Storybrooke. “See how they sound in the morning.”

 

_ I love you _ , Emma thinks for the third time that night, and this time she says it. “I–” she starts, and her eyes drift closed, the last sensation she feels a brush of Regina’s lips against her cheek.

 

* * *

 

When she wakes up, she’s battling the worst headache she’s had in years and she’s still drunk. “No,” she groans, staggering to the bathroom, and she vomits into the toilet twice before she can lift her head again. 

 

“Aspirin?” Henry says pertly from the doorway. He’s wearing flannel pajamas and a patronizing smile that he’s perfected from Regina. “Mom says that I’m supposed to help you out until you’re in a ‘condition’ to come downstairs.” 

 

“Sweet of her.” 

 

Henry bobs his head. “She also says that I’m supposed to take this experience as a cautionary tale about drinking more than I can handle.” He wrinkles his nose. “It worked. I’m never, ever getting drunk.” 

 

“Oh, my god,” Emma says, slumping against the toilet. Henry looks curiously at her. She shakes her head, which hurts even more than remembering last night’s conversation had. “Nothing. God. Never drink, kid. Am I really allowed downstairs?” 

 

“You gotta shower first. No way you’re going to make Mom fall in love with you again with puke in your hair,” Henry informs her, and ducks away before she can shove him. 

 

She sighs and showers, already dreading the apologies she’s going to have to make when she gets downstairs. But Regina is out when she makes it into the kitchen, gone with Henry to the bus stop and leaving a plate of warm pancakes under a plate in the frying pan on the stove. Emma eats four of them and makes it into the foyer before the door opens again and Regina enters the house.

 

“Drink some water,” she says briskly, dragging an assessing eye over Emma. “I’ve called in sick for you. Take a quiet morning.” Her voice softens, the businesslike tone fading away as she puts a hand on Emma’s, light and barely a touch. 

 

Emma blinks at her, astonished that she isn’t going to get a lecture. “Really?” 

 

“Really.” Regina arches an eyebrow. “Were you expecting me to throw you to your parents this early in the morning after last night?” There’s a flush to her cheeks, an exhilaration and an embarrassment contained within them. Emma can only stare, awed at the pinkness to her face and the smirk in her eyes. Regina says, “Was it…” Her voice falters. “Was it what you needed? Last night?” 

 

“Regina,” Emma says, struck with absolute disbelief that Regina would  _ still _ – “I…” She swallows. “I’m sorry. About all of it.” 

 

“Don’t be,” Regina says hastily, trapping her lower lip in her teeth for a moment before she releases it. Emma stares at Regina’s mouth, her own mouth growing dry. “I had fun.” 

 

“I said a lot of stuff that was…” Emma can’t quite find the words. “Inappropriate.” 

 

“I had fun,” Regina repeats determinedly. “I liked…I liked dancing with you,” she admits, and Emma takes a step forward, her eyes widening despite herself. 

 

“Did you really?” She forgets her hangover, forgets that she’d been halfway out of town last night, forgets everything but how easy it is to slide a hand around Regina’s waist again, feeling her sway against Emma’s grip. “I was so drunk,” she murmurs ruefully. “I’m much better at it sober?” But her bravado fades into a question before she can stop it, and Regina snakes an arm around her and tangles comforting fingers into her wet hair. 

 

“How are you feeling?” Regina whispers, and her brown eyes are swimming with genuine concern, enough for Emma to drown in. “Still ready to jump in your car and…?” She doesn’t finish the sentence, as though she can’t bear to, and Emma clears her throat and tries to think as she stares into Regina’s eyes, swaying with her in her foyer.

 

The doorbell rings, and they both jump, wide-eyed and uncertain. “I’d…I’d better get that,” Regina says, a tic in her neck moving as she swallows. Emma nods dumbly, slinking into the living room and sinking down to the floor against the sofa as she struggles to get a grip on herself.

 

The struggle becomes infinitely easier when Regina opens the door and says, “Oh. Hello,” with so much helplessness in her voice that Emma knows it’s going to be Robin Hood before he ever says a word. Regina’s conversation with Mary Margaret comes rushing back, and Emma shuts her eyes and leans back against the couch, castigating herself for forgetting why she’d wanted to leave in the first place.

 

“We had a meeting this morning,” Robin reminds Regina. “Felix and the other Lost Boys who want to leave?” 

 

“Oh. Yes, of course,” Regina says, flustered. “I’m so sorry. I took the day off and…forgot about the meeting.” She’d taken the day off to…what? Look after Emma? Emma can feel bitterness swelling in tandem with despair, futile longing catching in her throat.

 

Robin Hood, blessedly, remains oblivious to whatever subtext there is afoot. “That’s quite all right,” he says easily. “Why don’t we discuss it over lunch at Granny’s?” 

 

Emma shakes in place, her eyes shut as she hears Regina’s footsteps moving toward the study. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she says, her voice strained. “If you’d like to schedule a meeting with my secretary for this afternoon–” 

 

“Regina,” Robin says, and Emma can hear the damned smile in his voice, indulgent and fond as though he could ever indulge  _ Regina _ . “It’s all right,” he says again. “I  _ know _ .” 

 

“You know my working schedule?” And Emma knows she’s imagining the touch of ice in Regina’s tone. 

 

“I know about the pixie dust,” Robin says, and Emma’s eyes snap open. “Tinkerbell told me everything. I know you’re my soulmate.” It’s like nails on chalkboard to even hear the claim, enough to make Emma quiver with fury and disgust and pain. She sits up, her fingers clenching into fists.

 

“No,” Regina says shakily, and Emma can’t– can’t hear whatever it is that Regina’s going to say because she knows Emma’s in the room. She can’t hear Robin pressing onward, can’t hear the murmur of, “It’s all right,” yet again and the creaking of his step toward Regina, and she sees him reaching for Regina as she slips out through the dining room to the kitchen back door.

 

She flees from the house, sick again and with a pounding headache that no aspirin will help. 

 

* * *

 

 

Home used to be an apartment in New York City, a dozen flights up but sunny and quiet and  _ hers _ . Before that, home had been the apartment that she’s nearing now, source of all her greatest peace and turmoil. Mary Margaret’s apartment.

 

Snow White’s apartment.

 

She closes her eyes and hates feeling the tears leak out. She hasn’t cried since the night she’d fought with Regina, and she’d been  _ fine _ , sleepwalking through life here and waiting for a chance to escape it intact. She isn’t a crier, she’s never been sentimental, and she isn’t going to collapse over concepts of  _ home  _ and  _ love _ and whatever it is she’s given up on. 

 

The spot where her mark had been twinges with a sharp pulse of pain, as though chiding her as well, and she doubles over for a moment, squeezing her hand against it to stem the phantom pain.  _ Not now _ . She doesn’t need this now, the mark still aching as she limps through Storybrooke.

 

She should just…go, get back in her car and really leave town this time. She shouldn’t be walking back to the apartment in a vain attempt to…stall? She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know what else she has here, aside from a son who has another mother he’s living with and a…

 

A cry splits the air as she puts a hand on the apartment door, and she cringes. A  _ brother _ . That’s what she has. A brother who will be everything she’d never been to her parents. She withdraws her hand and takes a step back– what is she  _ thinking _ , coming back– and then there’s a movement behind the door and Mary Margaret pulls it open. 

 

“Emma!” she says, looking pleased. “You didn’t come home last night. I’ve been worried.” 

 

“I have my phone,” Emma says, at which point she realizes that she doesn’t. She must have left it in the car before the bar. “I…” 

 

Mary Margaret’s eyes sharpen, her free hand going out to Emma’s as she tugs her inside. “What’s wrong?” she says, and Emma blinks rapidly, struggles to hide the tears and fails. “Oh, Emma.” 

 

“It’s nothing,” Emma says hastily. “It’s just been a long morning.” She’s led into the house, tugged in as easily as though she  _ belongs _ , and she sits down unsteadily at the table. Mary Margaret fixes cocoa one-handed, setting down one for Emma before pouring out her own. Emma gestures to the baby. “Do you want me to–” 

 

Mary Margaret smiles and shakes her head, the baby still clutched in her arm, and Emma is relieved and a little lost at once. 

 

“Emma,” Mary Margaret says, sliding into place opposite her. “When you didn’t come back, I thought…well, I just assumed– Regina–” 

 

“I drove to the town line,” Emma blurts out, desperate to avoid talk of Regina. Mary Margaret’s eyes widen. “I drive there…a lot. I don’t know. I don’t know how to be here anymore.” 

 

Mary Margaret is silent, her features rearranging into something unreadable. A minute ticks by, and then a second, and she says, “Has Regina been coming to get you?” 

 

It’s surprisingly insightful from a mother who has never quite mastered insight, and Emma can feel the tears tracking down her cheeks again. “This time, she did. She took me out…we went for drinks.” None of this seems to surprise Mary Margaret, which might be why Emma lurches onward to the more surprising tidbits. “Then I propositioned her and she put me to bed.” 

 

Mary Margaret shakes her head, smiling warmly at her and still supremely unsurprised. “Of course she did. I think she cares far too much about you to take advantage of you when you’re  _ that  _ drunk.” She reaches out to tangle her hand in Emma’s on the table, warm and comfortable.

 

Emma stares at her, wordless. “You knew.” 

 

“I’ve known since before Neverland,” Mary Margaret admits. “I wish I hadn’t known quite as much as I did in Neverland,” she says, her wince speaking volumes, and Emma flushes. “I think I’d have been a lot more alarmed about it if not for how much Regina, well…” She squeezes Emma’s hand, her face shining. 

 

“I thought she was my soulmate,” Emma says, and  _ that  _ has Mary Margaret’s eyebrows shooting up. “I didn’t want her to be my soulmate. I wanted to have a choice. But now she  _ isn’t  _ my soulmate, and instead she’s in love with  _ him  _ and I just want her, I don’t care about soulmates–”  

 

“Wait. Wait, wait,” Mary Margaret says, putting up her hand to silence Emma’s outburst. “In love with who?”

 

“I know you know about Robin–” 

 

“Robin who? Robin  _ Hood _ ?” Mary Margaret says, her brow furrowed. “Why in the world would you think Regina was in love with Robin Hood?”

 

Emma stares at her, suddenly very weary. “You don’t have to play dumb,” she mutters. “I heard you talking yesterday. I heard her say that she…” The words are like poison in her mouth. “That she couldn’t imagine her life without him.”  

 

“Him,” Mary Margaret echoes, her gaze still vague and uncertain. “What are you–  _ Emma _ ,” she says shaking her head. “You heard us talking here? About you?” Emma nods blankly. “There’s only one  _ him _ in Regina’s life, you know that.” 

 

“What? No.” She struggles to remember the conversation, remember how she had known so incontrovertibly that it had been Robin Hood they’d been discussing.  _ It’s breaking Emma’s heart.  _ Not a soulmate, but their son remaining in Storybrooke while Emma wants to run away. Not a soulmate. Their son. “But–” The tears are threatening to break free again. “But he’s her–” 

 

“No one who’s been paying attention thinks Regina isn’t in love with you,” Mary Margaret says gently, and Emma buries her face in her hands, overwhelmed. Mary Margaret stands, and Emma waits for her to shuffle over and peers out between her fingers when she doesn’t. She’s letting go of the baby for maybe the first time since she’d given birth, putting him into his bassinet, and she returns to crouch in front of Emma as traitorous tears threaten to fall. “My beautiful Emma,” she whispers, clasping her hands against Emma’s cheeks, brushing away the tears. “How could she not be?” 

 

There’s so much undisguised love in Mary Margaret’s eyes, so much promise that Emma does  _ matter _ , and it pierces a dozen uncertain layers of her and goes straight to a longing that has been dried up and shriveled into nothingness as the years have passed. “Mom,” Emma chokes out, and then Mary Margaret’s blinking back tears, too, staring up at her in helpless awe, and Emma whispers again, “Mom?” 

 

“Emma,” Mary Margaret murmurs, and they haven’t said anything, really, ensconced in this quiet world in the apartment that had once been theirs together. But somehow, it’s enough to make Emma want to stay, to understand whatever it is that’s passed between them, and Mary Margaret kisses her forehead as the door creaks open behind them.

 

Emma turns. Regina is framed in the doorway, staring down at them in surprise. Mary Margaret rises hurriedly. “Oh, look at the time. I’d better go...somewhere else,” she says, depositing the baby in the stroller and making a mad dash for the door. 

 

“Subtle,” Regina says dryly, but she’s already turning back to Emma, taking a step forward as Mary Margaret closes the door behind her. “I thought you might be halfway to the town line by now,” she says.

 

“Me too,” Emma admits ruefully, shifting in her chair to face Regina. “I thought you…” 

 

“What?” Regina demands. “That I’d be off on a lunch date with Robin Hood?” She takes a step forward, closer to Emma. “You keep running away,” she says helplessly. “And I…I keep letting you.” Emma stares at her, voiceless again. Regina straightens. “I’m done. All right? I’m done. So…” Her voice falters, and she looks uncertain again. 

 

Emma swallows. “We talked about this. About your soulmate–” 

 

“I don’t want a soulmate,” Regina says flatly. “I don’t give a damn about soulmates. I want  _ you _ , and I know you don’t want–” 

 

“I want you,” Emma says at once, and Regina crosses the room as she stands, cradling Emma’s face in her hands and pressing her lips to Emma’s. It’s sudden, like a gust of wind that would blow her away, and Emma sways in it and parts her lips, dipping her tongue into Regina’s mouth and eliciting a groan. “Regina–” she gasps, and Regina kisses the corner of her mouth, kisses her neck, tugs at her skin with her teeth before she pulls back. 

 

“I want you,” she says again, this time more tentative. “Is that…?” 

 

“He’s your soulmate,” Emma reminds her, her heart hurting at the admission. “There’s a whole lot of pixie dust that says so.” 

 

Regina scoffs. “You weren’t even  _ born _ then. I don’t care what pixie dust said.” 

 

“Someday you might,” Emma chokes out. She’s dwelled on this a thousand times, on what it would mean for their future if she’d pushed and Regina had accepted her. “You’re going to see Robin Hood every day and wonder, deep down, if maybe he has a matching mark to yours. And if I– if I love you and you find that he does…I can’t.”  _ Fuck _ , do the tears ever stop once they start. “I can’t lose you to– What are you doing?” she says, distracted. Regina’s unbuttoning her shirt methodically, baring the curve of her breast and then her bra and then the smooth, blank skin below it. Emma stares.

 

“You wanted to fight destiny,” Regina murmurs, touching the spot where her tattoo had been. Emma can’t breathe. “I want to be there with you. It’s gone. No more doubts, Emma.” 

 

Emma’s eyes are glued to the unblemished skin, to Regina standing exposed in front of her, to her fingers reaching out to touch the spot and Regina inhaling but nothing more. And all she can think of to say, between  _ how can you possibly want me more than that mark  _ and  _ I think I’ve loved you since the day you let me into your house last year _ and  _ how are you everything I’ve ever dreamed of  _ is just, stupidly, “But when I touched you there– it was like a… _ fucking _ aphrodisiac– you gave up  _ that _ – for  _ me _ ?”

 

Regina laughs, laughs, until there are tears at the corners of her eyes and her hands are splayed against Emma’s chest, her lips against Emma’s ear as she manages, “I love you, Emma Swan.” Something sparks in her heart, something that quickens its beat and tugs deep in her belly with a wild thrust of pleasure, and Emma chokes and falls against Regina, awash in sensations as all-encompassing as they’d been when she’d been lying on the couch last year, Regina’s fingers on her mark as she’d removed it. “And we have  _ magic _ . We can do much better than that.” 

 

Emma lifts her head again and kisses Regina, quivers in her grasp and finds the core where Regina’s magic is coiling, joins it and adds her own until Regina is shaking in her grasp and they’re locked together. Her legs feel like jelly and she’s leaning against the kitchen counter for support and there’s  _ magic _ , buzzing through them as it had in the mines, joining from purples and blues into a blinding white that has both of them crying out and crying together, foreheads pressed to each other as they grow slick with sweat.

 

“See?” Regina says breathlessly, lips on Emma’s again. Emma can’t remember a time before they’d been here, dazed and needy and ready to lift Regina onto the kitchen counter. “There’s nothing destiny can’t do that we can’t top–  _ Emma _ –” she says, as Emma takes advantage of her distraction to prop her up against the counter. “Emma,” she breathes, and Emma closes her eyes and feels nothing around her but home.

 

* * *

 

“I got  _ really  _ good at math in New York,” Henry says, preening as he passes his test over to Regina. 

 

She gasps over the grade, wrapping an arm around him and pressing her lips to his hair. “You did! You really did!” She looks up, her eyes bright, and finds Emma’s beam from across the living room. “I think this calls for a celebratory dinner.” 

 

Emma’s hand is on her phone before Regina can give her a disapproving look. “I’ll order the pizza,” she says, and tosses the phone to Henry as Regina makes a mad dash for it. “Go! Do it for the future of decimalkind!”

 

Henry gives her a look. “You’re a  _ dork _ , Ma.” But he ducks away as Regina spins around, dialing the number and managing a hasty order before they lose their chance. Regina scowls and rolls her eyes until Emma slides her arms around her waist, kissing her cheek sweetly.

 

“Henry deserves Pizza Night,” she says, heartfelt. “You deserve Pizza Night. We all deserve Pizza Night.” 

 

“It’s atrocious.” 

 

“You love it,” Emma says, grinning unrepentantly when Regina gasps in denial. “But okay, yes, we’ll  _ foist  _ the pizza onto you. And you thought Storybrooke was free of villains.” She dances away from Regina before she gets elbowed, and Regina tugs her close, presses her lips to Emma’s chastely. Emma exhales, closing her eyes. Sometimes even now, it’s unbelievable that they can have this. 

 

“Not that I don’t love and support my gay moms or whatever that bumper sticker Grandma got for us says,” Henry says, and Emma can almost hear the way he’s wrinkling his nose. “But ew.” 

 

Emma pulls away to tousle his air. “Excuse me? Who made you kick ass at math this year? This is my moment of victory, too. Which means I get to smooch your mom as much as I want.” She kisses Regina again, grinning when Henry shoves her and Regina tangles her fingers in Emma’s.

 

“Please never say the word smooch again,” Henry says, rolling his eyes at them both, and he heads to the dining room to set the table without another word. 

 

“I second the request,” Regina says, but she’s leaning against Emma, indulgent. Her eyes are closed when Emma turns to look at her, and Emma holds her breath and waits until Regina opens her eyes again, the same wonder in her gaze. 

 

“Hi,” she murmurs. 

 

“Hi,” Regina echoes. It’s odd, how quickly the mood can shift for them from playful to contemplative. It’s a coda to two years of fumbling and trying to find a place where all three of them belong, and every moment now is suffused with the sort of rightness that Emma had never imagined she’d have. “Are you all right?” 

 

_ Are you all right _ . It’s code for a dozen more questions:  _ Are you happy? Is this okay? Is this where you want to be?  _ Each question is asked with the same insecurity, the same baggage that weighs down each moment they have and makes it all the more precious. “Oh, yes,” Emma says, tugging Regina down to the couch, and Regina curls against her and kisses her languidly while Henry gets the door for the pizza delivery.

 

They’re back on the couch after dinner, this time with Henry between them, Henry fighting imaginary monsters onscreen while Regina makes critical comments about Emma’s form. “This is just how you call up your magic. No finesse, just brute force.”

 

“Isn’t it great?” Emma says, and Henry passes the controller to Regina so she can thoroughly crush Emma in response.

 

It’s when they’re all slowing down, Regina’s head drooping onto Henry’s shoulder and Emma half sprawled out across the couch, that Henry says casually, “I saw a kid in PE today with my mark.” 

 

“Your mark?” Regina says drowsily, but Emma stiffens, sucking in a breath.

 

“Yeah. It looked like it, but I didn’t get to see it for very long.” Henry bites his lip. “Right there on his knee.” His eyes aren’t so casual anymore, and he finds Emma’s gaze while Regina shifts against him. “Maybe it wasn’t really the mark.” 

 

“Maybe,” Emma says, slipping her hand into his. “Maybe not.” 

 

Henry shrugs, staring at the screen again instead of Emma. “I don’t know. What do you think?” 

 

It’s Regina who answers, her voice clear. “I think you’re twelve years old,” she says. “And the world is large enough that there can be two very similar marks that don’t mean you’ve found your soulmate.” She kisses Henry’s temple, and Emma watches him relax against her, relieved. “When you find the person you want to spend your life with– when you’re  _ much _ older– you’ll know.” 

 

“Maybe not right away,” Emma objects, leaning comfortably back against the couch. “Look out for curses.” 

 

Regina’s eyebrows rise but she says nothing but a good-natured, “For them invading your life without  _ any  _ consent.”

 

Emma grins. “For that time they try to frame your roommate and poison your food.”

 

“They might even put a knife to your neck–”

 

“–After being  _ strangled _ !” Emma points out, but she’s still grinning, and there’s no crawling panic at  _ person you want to spend your life with  _ and how quickly she’d named her own.

 

“When you find that person,” Regina says, looking very innocent and certainly not like the kind of woman who walks into a room and puts her future girlfriend into a magical chokehold, “I don’t think any mark on their skin is going to mean more than who they are, and who you are, and who you both want to be for each other.” 

 

Henry makes a face. “A little too gooey, Mom.” But he shifts away from them, contemplative, and he’s still thinking about it when he heads up for bed that night.

 

“Stay,” Regina says when Emma makes a halfhearted attempt to leave, and Emma takes her hand and allows herself to be led upstairs. It’s been a little over a month and Emma is already spending more nights at Regina’s place than her own, already slotting comfortably into the Mills household. Mary Margaret is simultaneously overly supportive and sighing about how much she misses Emma, and it’s been just enough time that that doesn’t grate at all.

 

For now, though, she pushes thoughts of what’s waiting for her at home from her mind and instead explores the smooth expanse of skin at Regina’s neck, kissing a bruise she’d left there the night before and sliding a hand under Regina’s dress to pull it up and over her head. Regina hums with approval, sliding a hand into Emma’s jeans to squeeze her ass, and Emma bucks against her for a moment before Regina twists, letting them fall into her bed together.

 

“The person you want to spend your life with?” she murmurs, eyes catching Emma’s. 

 

Emma lets go of her hand, reaching for a spot below Regina’s breast that’s  _ hers _ , even if it’s smooth and unmarked.  _ Because  _ it’s smooth and unmarked. “I don’t know,” she mumbles. “It’s too soon, right?” 

 

“Or it’s been far too long,” Regina whispers, and Emma strokes her spot, watches Regina shiver, leans in to kiss her. 

  
“Far too long,” she agrees, and Regina’s skin vibrates with a quiet hum as she raises her lips to meet Emma’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! You can read more about how to support my writing [here!](http://coalitiongirl.tumblr.com/coffee) :)


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